Slides used on 11th May with the Queensland Association of State School Principals (QASSP)

1. Challenge, wobble and roll – QASSP, 11th May 2012
James Nottingham www.challenginglearning.com

3. Scandinavians talk about ‘curling parents’

4. Where am I going?
How am I doing?
What are my next steps?
The 3 most powerful questions for learning

5. How do we improve achievement for all?
Achievement is more likely to be increased when
students …
 Invoke learning rather than performance strategies
 Accept rather than discount feedback
 Benchmark to difficult rather than to easy goals
 Compare themselves to subject criteria rather than to
other students
 Possess high rather than low efficacy to learning
 Effect self-regulation and personal control
John Hattie, 2009

6. What do these 3 have in common?

7. 10
9 How much challenge was there?
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0

9. Challenge and Learning
Too Hard
PA
Potential Ability
Current Ability
CA
SA
Subconscious Ability
Too Easy

10. The Teaching Target Model (TTM)
PA
Performance
CA
SA
Time

12. More videos of challenge
Videos on:
jamesnottingham.co.uk
p4c.com
Youtube.com/jabulani4

13. Teaching children how to think
Robin Hood
Stealing was right
is wrong

14. What is challenge?

15. Facts and Concepts
Fact Paris is the Knowledge
capital of France
Concept (Capital) cities Understanding

16. Recent Demo Lesson Concepts
What is a toy? (5 year olds)
Was the mouse telling lies?(7 year olds)
What happens when you die? (11 year olds)
What‟s the difference between tragedy and
romance? (14 year olds)
What is culture? (15 year olds)
Is zero the same as nothing? (17 year olds)

17. Example question starters
What is … playing?
How do we know what is … Who decides what is …
What if …
Always or never
When would …
What is the difference between …
Is it possible to …
Should we …

18. The Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition
Can read
Need routines the context
Basis for Action
Novice Beginner Competent Proficient Expert

19. Novice: rule-governed behaviour
 Need generalised rules and structures as a guide
 Quality management systems can be very helpful
 If something goes wrong, blame the system or senior people
Little personal responsibility in this context
Beginner: hungering for certainty
 Starting to notice patterns
 Wishing things were more predictable
 Looking for “the book” or “the expert” to provide the answers
 Feel limited personal responsibility

20. Competent: planned & analytical
 Efficient and organised
 Can assess relative importance and urgency
 Can readily describe and explain actions
 Feel personal responsibility for outcomes
Proficient: strategic and able to read context
 Seldom surprised, have learned what to expect
 Have organised knowledge into wise sayings
 Sometimes forget to explain complexities of the big picture to
analytical competent colleagues
 Rapid, fluid, involved, intuitive type of behaviour

21. Expert: right thing at the right time
Highly intuitive, based on huge store of wisdom
Great capacity to handle the unexpected
Highly nuanced behaviour, very context specific
Often there are no words to describe expert
performance, and often it is subconscious anyway
Hard to fit this into quality systems
Performance drops if generalised rules are imposed
Usually does not make for good teaching of
novices, but great for teaching competent people

22. Socratic questions
Clarify Are you saying that …?
Can you give us an example of …?
Reasons Why do you say that …?
What reasons support your idea?
Assumptions Are you assuming that …?
What would happen if …?
How could we look at this in a different way?
Viewpoints
What alternatives are there to this?
Wouldn‟t that mean that …?
Effects
What are the consequences of that?

25. Marking sheet for history essays (Frank Egan)
Introduction Conclusion
 4+ sentences  3+ sentences
 Proposition stated  Summation
 Outline of narrative  Proof of proposition
 Context of topic  Specific reference to
assess/evaluate as last sentence
Body of essay Literacy
 3+ paragraphs  Spelling accuracy
 6+ facts per paragraph  Grammar structures
 Inter-relationships
“I can actually see how to
 Argument is relevant
improve, it’s obvious.”
 Quote with source given

27. Where are we going and how will we know we‟re there?
Learning Intentions
o To find out what links the Vikings with North East England
Success Criteria
o Know when and where the Vikings came from
o Identify names and places associated with the Vikings
o Ask relevant questions about the Vikings

28. Why did they Gate
AD 700 - 1100 attack Lindisfarne? Bairns
Lad
Tarn
Vikings Thriding
Norse Rape &
language pillage
Did they believe in
Longships God?
Dragon Horned
ships helmets

29. Marzano – groups of 3 work best
Informal
Formal
Long-term

30. Why did they Gate
AD 700 - 1100 attack Lindisfarne? Bairns
Captured
Lad
Yorvik in 866
Tarn
Vikings Thriding
Norse Rape &
language pillage
King Cnut Did they believe in
ruled England Longships God?
from 1016 Dragon Horned
helmets Gods included
ships Odin, Thor, Fri
Eric Bloodaxe
gg & Loki
Dead warriors went died in 954
to Valhalla

31. Other ways to challenge
What‟s the point?
Ready Learning Intentions
Success Criteria
Initial instruction
Fire First attempts by children
Aim Formative assessment and
a focus on progress

32. Learning goal - use descriptive words when writing about places
and characters eg „the mud is squelchy and sticks to my wellies like syrup‟, or „the
ogre in my story is really quite shy but he pretends to be brave and a bit bossy.‟
a. There‟s some lovely descriptive
f.
words in here. Well done!
b. Angry, fierce and loud are nice g. Why do you think
descriptive words to use about the ogre. you missed the first
Can you describe the ogre‟s cave now? part of the challenge?
What could you do
c. You‟ve tried really hard next time to check
with this. Good girl! your work more
accurately?
d. I really enjoyed reading this –
thank you! h. What a lovely story –
e. You‟ve responded well to the there are some
second part of the challenge. Now wonderfully descriptive
focus more on the first part. words in there

33. Feedback types
Task level
Process level
Self-regulation
level
Self level (praise)

34. “The art of effective
teaching is to provide
the right form of
feedback at, or just
above, the level at
which the student is
working – with one
exception …”
“… do not mix praise
into the feedback
prompt, because this
dilutes the effect!”
Visible Learning for Teachers (Hattie, 2011), pp 121

35. Praise that dilutes the positive effect of feedback
Clever girl!
Gifted musician
Brilliant
mathematician
Bright boy
Top of the class!
By far the best

36. The effects of different types of praise
Mueller and
Dweck, 1998
In six studies, 7th
grade students
were given a
series of
nonverbal IQ
tests.

37. Mueller and Dweck, 1998
Intelligence praise
“Wow, that‟s a really good score. You must be smart at this.”
Process praise
“Wow, that‟s a really good score. You must have tried really
hard.”
Control-group praise
“Wow, that‟s a really good score.”

38. Number of problems solved on a 3rd test
6.5
6
Effort Praise
5.5
Control Praise
5 Intelligence Praise
4.5
Trial 1 Trial 3

39. Boys get 8 times more criticism than girls

40. The effects of praise
Swimming
“You do your best
swimming when you
concentrate and try your
best to do what Chris is
asking you to do”
Ballet
“You‟re the best
ballerina in the world!”

41. 1.Good girl; 2.How extraordinary; 3.Great effort; 4.Outstanding
performance; 5.What a scientist you are; 6.Unbelievable work;
7.You‟re a genius; 8.You're getting better; 9.Clever boy 10.You
should be proud; 11.You've got it; 12.You're special; 13. Very
talented; 14. You've outdone yourself; 15. What a great listener;
16. You came through; 17.You‟re very artistic; 18.Keep up the
good work; 19.It's everything I hoped for; 20.Perfect; 21.A+ Work;
22.You're a shining star; 23.Inspired; 24.You're #1; 25.You're very
responsible; 26.You're very talented; 27.Spectacular work;
28.Great discovery; 29.You're amazing; 30.What a great idea;
31.Well worked through; 32.Very thoughtful; 33.You figured it out;
34.Top of the class; 35. You make me smile

42. Too much innovation
“One of the most critical problems
our schools face is not resistance to
innovation but the
fragmentation, overload and
incoherence resulting from the
uncritical and uncoordinated
acceptance of too many different
innovations”
Fullan&Stiegelbauer, 1991

43. challenginglearning.com
p4c.coop
james@p4c.com
@JamesNottinghm