1. Outstanding teaching and
learning for the 21st
Century:
Practical strategies for
developing independent
learners
Paget High School 2012
Prepared and presented by
Claire Gadsby

3. Your starter for 10 ….
Where does one find
the most
independent learners?

4. It is fundamentally important
to keep talking about
teaching and learning even
if you are a successful
school

5. It is fundamentally important
to keep talking about
teaching and learning even
if you are a successful
school because ....

6. As many as 26,000 students (5%) leave
school without any GCSEs and over
75,000 (17%) of 15-year-olds have low
levels of literacy, despite ostensibly going
through eleven years of compulsory
education (Educational Working Group,
2006).

7. “Pick a card, any card ....”

9. T-Shirt time ....

10. The World is changing…
Women at the Cadbury factory in Bournville in the 1950s

11. picture here
Current Chocolate Production
Cadbury factory in Bournville now

12. The world is changing…

13. or is it?

14. “The world our kids are
going to live in is
changing four times
faster than our schools”
 Dr William Daggett, 1992

15. “The illiterate of the 21st
century will not be those
who cannot read and write,
but those who cannot learn,
unlearn, and relearn.”
Alvin Toffler – American author of Science Fiction
born 1928

16. What kind of teacher is needed
to support this new kind of
learner?

17. Beware grandmothers
and eggs

18. “Fresh Eyes”: What does this
mean for me?

20. “Outstanding” descriptor for quality of teaching in the
school 2012
Much of the teaching in all key stages and most subjects is
outstanding and never less than consistently good. As a
result, almost all pupils are making rapid and sustained
progress. All teachers have consistently high expectations of
all pupils. Drawing on excellent subject knowledge, teachers
plan astutely and set challenging tasks based on systematic,
accurate assessment of pupils’ prior skills, knowledge and
understanding. They use well judged and often imaginative
teaching strategies that, together with sharply focused and
timely support and intervention, match individual needs
accurately. Consequently, pupils learn exceptionally well
across the curriculum. The teaching of reading, writing,
communication and mathematics is highly effective. Teachers
and other adults generate high levels of enthusiasm for,
participation in and commitment to learning.

21. “Outstanding” descriptor for quality of teaching in
the school 2012
Teaching promotes pupils’ high levels of resilience,
confidence and independence when they tackle
challenging activities. Teachers systematically and
effectively check pupils’ understanding throughout
lessons, anticipating where they may need to intervene
and doing so with notable impact on the quality of
learning. Time is used very well and every opportunity is
taken to successfully develop crucial skills, including
being able to use their literacy and numeracy skills in
other subjects. Appropriate and regular homework
contributes very well to pupils’ learning. Marking and
constructive feedback from teachers and pupils are
frequent and of a consistently high quality, leading to
high levels of engagement and interest.

22. “self-sabotaging” teacher .....

23. Dance Egyptians
Magnetism
Sex Education
The Tudors
Macbeth
Sikhism
Physical
Sc
ien
t if ic ral
ltu Picasso
Cu
Friction
Experiences
Leaning
Team Self-managers Independent enquirers
workers
Reflective Creative
learners participators

24. It is all about the appropriate
learning culture in the classroom ...

25. What’s the difference?

26. Carol Dweck’s theories of motivation, ability
and intelligence offer important insights for
teaching. She describes two mindsets or
beliefs about our learning ability that affect
how we respond to challenges:
the fixed mindset and the growth
mindset. While both mindsets are normal, if
we believe that intelligence is fixed and can’t
change, this can limit and undermine our
motivation and learning; believing that
we are no good or hopeless at something
gets in the way of learning.

27. Fixed (Performance) Mindset: valuing
looking good
Having a fixed mindset is about believing that:
• learning potential and ability are fixed and can
be measured, and
the goal is performance; and
• ability, not effort, is the way to overcome
challenges and setbacks.
Pupils with a fixed mindset think they’ve either
‘got it’ or they haven’t.

28. When they are faced with challenge they believe that
their ability, not effort, should help them overcome the
setback. So they can get used to coasting along on their
talents and the idea that good grades prove
their ability.
When these pupils experience failure, they see it as
something deficient or lacking in themselves. They can
crumble, showing a helpless response because of this
negative ‘I am just this smart and that is it’ mindset
(Perkins). Linking failure to their own lack of ability can
make them lack persistence, opt out of difficult learning
and be reluctant to try new things. They can become
overly concerned with looking good and feel bad if they
don’t look smart

29. Growth (Mastery) Mindset: valuing
learning
Having a growth mindset is about:
• being resilient in the face of frustration and
failure; and
• having the ability to respond well to challenges,
believing that effort can lead to success.
A growth mindset enables pupils to create and
work towards learning goals because they believe
in themselves as learners with the capacity to
improve. It’s about having a robust self-efficacy
that shapes attitude, motivation and commitment
to learning.

30. Pupils with a growth mindset tend to respond to
failure by redoubling their efforts, because they
have hope that they will succeed. The harder it gets,
the harder they try. Seeing effort as the path to
mastery, they persevere when the going gets tough
and often talk themselves through difficulties. They
have a positive, can-do, bit-by-bit mindset.
The mastery response means that these pupils are
more attentive to what they can learn than to how
good they look or how bad they feel.

31. Eye of the Tiger!

32. It is time to take the stabilisers off…

33. “If you spoon-feed a
child, all he learns is
the shape of the
spoon”

34. The million dollar question ….
How do you cultivate
growth mindsets?

35. The B strategy ...
Board
Book
Brain
Buddy
“Big Boss”

36. How we learn ....
• As passive learners, we
remember only 10% of what we
read,
• 20% of what we hear,
• and 30% of what we see.
• When you teach someone else,
you retain 70 % of what you
teach.
• When you tell and show
someone you retain 90% of what
you say and do!

37. “Failure is a great
teacher”

38. Challenges for teachers?

40. Key message 1 ...
Pupils tend to know far more than
we think. We can help them to be
more independent by harnessing
what they know already and
avoiding the tendency to re-teach
what they may already know

41. Hole in the wall ...

42. Dr. Sugata Mitra, Chief Scientist at NIIT, is credited with the
discovery of Hole-in-the-Wall. As early as 1982, he had been
toying with the idea of unsupervised learning and computers.
Finally, in 1999, he decided to test his ideas in the field. On
26th January, Dr. Mitra's team carved a "hole in the wall" that
separated the NIIT premises from the adjoining slum in Kalkaji,
New Delhi. Through this hole, a freely accessible computer was
put up for use. This computer proved to be an instant hit among
the slum dwellers, especially the children. With no prior
experience, the children learnt to use the computer on their
own. This prompted Dr. Mitra to propose the following
hypothesis:
The acquisition of basic computing skills by any set of children
can be achieved through incidental learning provided the
learners are given access to a suitable computing facility, with
entertaining and motivating content and some minimal (human)
guidance.

43. New ofsted: inspectors will
consider ...
 the extent to which teachers’ questioning
and use of discussion promote learning
 the extent to which the pace and depth of
learning are maximised as a result of
teachers’ monitoring of learning during
lessons and any consequent actions in
response to pupils’ feedback

44. From rhetoric to reality ...
Rhetoric Reality

45. Stage 1
Planning for progress

46. OFSTED’s commonest finding:
Assessment
does not
sufficiently
inform teaching
and learning.

48. “The agile teacher”
 Showing awareness of L M H pupils within
a class
 Responding directly to the needs of these
pupils within one lesson

49. How are you, as a teacher,
showing that you are aware of
prior learning and building on
that?

50. What are you doing differently
in the lesson as a result of
knowledge gained through the
assessment of your pupils?

52. Classrooms
Current research suggests…
 Classrooms have 4x more influence on
pupils than anything that happens at
whole school level
 60% of pupils in secondary schools never
have a conversation with an adult whilst in
school
 The average length of a pupil response is
5 words

53. Teacher input currently
accounts for approximately
?% of each lesson

54. Current research suggests that
the single biggest cause of
academic underachievement is ?

55. “The Big 5”

56. So, what are the techniques we
should be using in the classroom?
Dylan Wiliam has clarified the important elements as:
 Sharing learning intentions,
 engineering effective classroom
discussions,
 formative feedback,
 activating learners as resources for
each other
 activating learners as owners of their
own learning

57. Some practical strategies ....
“Tap into the talent in the room” – instead
of the facilitator providing input in the early
stages, begin by drawing out what
learners already know by getting them to
seek out information from each other (e.g.
trio discussion).

58. 8 schools project – key
message 1
It is fundamental that pupils have a clear
understanding of what they are trying to
learn (learning objectives), how they can
recognise achievement (learning
outcomes), what good looks like
(success criteria) and why they are
learning this in the first place (that is, the
bigger picture)

59. Fascinators ...

61. The pen of power
 ‘Pen of power’ technique – select a pupil
to come to the front and use the ‘pen of
power’ to highlight key words within the
objective and to explain their choices.

62. Evaluate how
writers use linguistic
and structural
devices to achieve
particular effects.

63. “The Rolf Harris”
 Ask the pupils to suggest what the
learning objective is before revealing it
(e.g. could be completely concealed
beneath sugar paper or possibly with
some words visible). Discuss
differences/commonalities.

64. Delete Petite
 Delete objective word by word during
the lesson. Challenge pupils to remember
correctly by the end.

65. The Red Herring
 Add an extra learning objective and ask
pupils at the end of the lesson to identify
which one has not been covered and
how they know (a red herring!)

66. Guess who ?
 Distribute a range of learning
objectives to pupils individually and, at
the end of the lesson, ask them to work in
groups to discuss who thinks that they
have that lesson’s correct objective in
front of them and how they know.

67. “Cloze but no cigar ...”
 Present the learning objectives as acloze
activity where pupils are encouraged to
fill in the missing words before the
completed learning objective is revealed.

68. “Place your bets”
 Get pupils to speculate(bid) for verbs
that could complete a learning objective
(e.g. using plenary placemat/Bloom’s
sentence stems).

69. And what else ....?

70. Now for the spaghetti .....

71. GCSE in Construction!
TASK
 You have 2 minutes to build a
structure using marshmallows and
spaghetti you have been provided
with.

72. Success Criteria
 Level 2 – if it will stand on its own
and it includes horizontal and
vertical struts.
 Level 4 – if it goes up to two
‘floors’ and it includes diagonal
struts
 Level 6 – if it goes up higher than
two floors and can support an
apple.

73. 8 Schools Project Report
Key message 2
Pupils’ progress is accelerated when they
are clear about the success criteria for the
intended outcomes and are able to judge
the quality of their work and know how to
improve it. This requires teachers having a
good understanding of progression in the
key concepts and skills in their subject.

74. The ideal ….
“Teachers assess pupils’ progress
regularly and accurately and
discuss assessments with them
so that pupils know how well they
have done and what they need to
do to improve”.
(Ofsted descriptor of “good” teaching and
learning 2012)

75. The reality …
Ofsted findings report that students
are often unclear about what they
are learning and why

76. “Lost in a sea of learning ....”
(or, beware the “happy, busy, good” pupil )

77. Success criteria: The Cinderella
aspect

78. Success Criteria--------The Missing Link
Possible use of………………..Must Should Could

80. The Holy Grail of AfL =
Genuine co-construction of
learning

81. 1. I have used the PEE chain in each paragraph, talking about why certain words are
important.
2. In at least two of my paragraphs I have talked about the importance of when the play was
written.
3. In each paragraph I have talked about a particular technique used by the playwright and
its effect o the audience.
4. I have written about characters and why their actions are important.
5. I have discussed the main ideas and themes of the play in some detail.
6. I have explained clearly and in some detail what is implied/suggested rather than told to
me.
7. I have tried to suggest some different possible interpretations about what things might
mean.
8. I have used formal essay language and linked my paragraphs using connectives e.g.
secondly, furthermore etc
You’ve used most of these key ingredients really well – 2 and 7 are missing.
Can you re-write paragraph 3 to include these?

82. Extra Extra ...
 Give pupils a list of possible success
criteria plus extras. Ask them which
should be deleted and why

83. The competition
 Use group work – each group generates a
list of possible success criteria. These can
then be critiqued by the class and the
“best” ones used

84. “2 for True”
 Teacher (or even better, pupils) call out a
selection of possible success criteria.
Pupils raise 2 hands if it is “true” (a
good suggestion) or 1 hand if it is false
(not suitable)

85. Pupil generated success criteria
1.Teacher “doing it wrong”
2.Presenting something wrong or
incomplete
3. An excellent example
4. Products
5. Sloppy success criteria
6. Uplevelling
7. Demonstrate (visualiser)
8.Retrospective generalisation

86. WMG
“What makes good”

87. WMG Bingo ....

88. As adults, when we are engaged in a task
we are continually, and instinctively,
reviewing and adapting as we go along.
Pupils don’t automatically do this – how
can we encourage this behaviour?

89. “Cream of the crop?”
 Come to a stop
 Read what you have produced so far
 Evaluate your work against the
success criteria
 Ask yourself - “Is this my best effort?”
 Make one small change before
carrying on

90. After the task, always ensure
that you go back to the
success criteria and critique
“Are we happy that we don’t
use yellow?”

91. And what else ....?

92. Classroom
dialogue and
questioning

93. “Word Poverty”
By the age of just three children from
impoverished environments use less than
half the number of words spoken by their
more advantaged peers.

94. What else might be causing
“word poverty”?

96. What does teacher-
student dialogue
usually look like?

97. Whole class discussion 1
Teacher: Remember the bell. There's the bell [holding up
a bell in front of the class]. You did the experiment. If
you held onto this bit here where the wires were
[indicating], did you notice anything there?
Jason: There were sparks there.
Teacher: Heat, did you notice some heat?
Jason: There were sparks from there.
Teacher: There were?
Jason: Sparks.
Teacher: There were some sparks, yes. Let's just ignore
the sparks a minute...some heat. There was a little bit of
heat there with that one.
Neil Mercer

98. Whole class discussion: Example 2
Teacher: Those of you that think he should not
have changed his name, I'd like to hear your
reasons, some of your reasons. Matthew?
Matthew: One reason is because Chang is part of
his history, his life, his um culture, like if, he, just
'cause he changed schools he didn't have to
change his name, and even if they're all
American, he lives in a Chinese part of town, and
uh, it's his culture, all behind him, what, he does
Chinese ceremonies and stuff, and um, he just
shouldn't have changed his name, 'cause all his
culture and stuff.
Neil Mercer

99. Ceri Morgan HMI
The magical moment
of interaction between
teacher and learner ....

100. Personalisation
“ Taking a highly structured and responsive
approach to each child’s learning, in order
that all are able to progress, achieve and
participate. It means strengthening the link
between learning and teaching by
engaging pupils – and their parents – as
partners in learning.”
Christine Gilbert 2007

101. Questioning
needs to
become
discussion

102. So what makes a
good discussion?

103. Through an emotional
hook ....
A Thunk is a beguilingly simple-looking
question about everyday things that stops
you in your tracks and helps you start to
look at the world in a whole new light.

104. Would you rather .....
Have foil teeth
or
Feather fingers?

105. What if .....
Rubbish bins gave you £1
back for every sack of
rubbish?

106. What seems
puzzling in this
picture?
What key questions
could be asked to
help explore the
meaning of what you
see?

108. Try “who could disapprove of
this picture?”

109. Try inverting questions
 Inverting a question
requires reasoning to be
employed in the answer
 Instead of asking “Is
Claudius a good king?”
ask “What qualities might
you expect to see in a
good king?”

110. Sorting and classifying tasks
 These allow students
to explore
assumptions and
investigate ideas
without having to
commit themselves to
a single “solution”

111. De Bono’s direct thinking tools
Tool 2 -- Plus, Minus, Interesting
Ensure that all sides of a matter have been considered
before a decision or commitment is made.
Tool 4 -- Consider All Factors
Explore all factors related to an action, decision, plan,
judgment, or conclusion.
Tool 6 -- Alternatives, Possibilities, Choices
Deliberately try to find other ways.
Tool 7 -- Other People's Views
Put yourself in others' shoes.

112. Tony Ryan’s Thinker’s Keys
2. The WHAT IF
You can ask virtually any What If question. They can be
either serious or frivolous. One excellent means of
displaying ideas from this key is to draw up an Ideas
Wheel.
THE EXAMPLE:
1. What if the price of petrol was immediately doubled?
2. What if all cars turned into skateboards?

113. Tony Ryan Key 17
The alternative
Work out 3 ways to:
record a visual image of a
special event
without a camera or
drawing implements

114. Most teachers questions are
answered in less than two
seconds: just not by the
students ….

115. Research shows ….
 Teachers typically use 300-400 questions
everyday. Most are lower order, functional
requests
 Increasing higher order questions to
around 50% of the total can raise
attainment and improve pupil attitudes

116. Key message – use WAIT TIME
 In the 1970s, Mary Rudd Rowe
videotaped hours of elementary science
classes, and noticed how teachers
generally waited only one second before
answering or repeating a question.
 After teachers were trained to allow 3 – 5
seconds of wait time, the following effects
were noticed …

117.  DECREASED  INCREASED
 Students who failed to  Unsolicited but
answer when called appropriate
on responses
 Length of responses
 Responses from less
able students
 Number of student
questions
 Student to student
interactions

118. Some golden rules ….
 Beware run-on questions but don’t be
afraid of “off-piste” questioning
 Don’t always use hands down questioning.
Research suggests that active student
response can be helpful in promoting
participation amongst socioeconomically
disadvantaged students
 The best way to cut down your
questioning is to increase the questions
students ask of you

119. ...the way to secure performance at the
highest levels is to create a system that
expects significantly more from more
pupils; in so doing, we would succeed in
raising the performance of the whole
school population
 Summarised from Deborah Eyre

120. Real questions ....
“So, in your opinion, how effective is the
author in conveying character so far?”
“Why might that dialogue have been
added?”
“Ryan, can you think of a less cliched word
for the lion’s noise than roaring?”

121. From a year 4 primary classroom in
Oxfordshire ......

122. Classroom dialogue
 How much of the classroom dialogue is
about learning and progress as opposed to
content?
 Do pupils get to ask questions as well as
answer them?
 Where are your pupils actively taught how to
use talk as a tool for thinking and learning?
 What are you doing to encourage
“basketball” dialogue as opposed to “ping
pong”?

123. Feedback and feed-
forward: How
formative feedback
contribute to
independence

124. Professor John Hattie’s
research ...
 Looked at 50,000 studies.....
 Reminds us that effective feedback
has the largest effect size of all
 Talks about the importance of
“assessment literate pupils”

125. Question .....
What do you think Hattie
means by “assessment
literate” pupils?

126. The ideal ….
“Teachers assess pupils’ progress
regularly and accurately and
discuss assessments with them
so that pupils know how well they
have done and what they need to
do to improve”.
(Ofsted descriptor of “good” teaching and
learning 2012)

127. Some issues with feedback ….

129. “Well done. Next time expand your ideas in
more detail.”
“Very good effort. Have another look at how
the last paragraph - could you develop
your idea further by introducing another
quote from the play?”
“This is a very interesting story James, but
remember to check your spellings!”

130. More issues with feedback
How clear is the feedback we give the students?
 ‘you must try harder’
 ‘develop these ideas further’
 ‘good work keep it up’
 ‘more detail needed here’
 ‘Use paragraphs’
How does the student interpret feedback?
 ‘This is one of my best because my hand writing is neat, I
checked my spellings and I put in the date’
 How?
 ‘A tick means he probably likes it’
 ‘there is a lot of writing at the end—this means it’s bad’

What sort of detail?
 If I knew how to use paragraphs I would have used them

131. We need more DIRT in
lessons ....
(Dedicated Improvement and
Reflection Time)

132. Feedback frames
 Read feedback carefully
 Ask if you don’t understand what is written down
 Decide which improvement you are going to make first
 Indicate which success criteria you are working on
 Colour of progress is purple – remember your purple
pen!
 Ask your partner to look at your improvements and to
give you honest feedback
 Link your work to the feedback given by your
teachers by telling them what you have done
and why

133. The “purple pen of progress”

134. “Buy one, Get one free” ...
Pupil annotation of their own
work

135. “Post it and plant it” feedback
….

136. Guided work: A missing piece of
the jigsaw?

137. Demonstrating learning
and progress within
the lesson: Activating
learners as resources
for themselves and
others

138. “Take over the Teacher ...”

139. Teacher as “guide on the side”
rather than “sage on the stage”
(.e.g. Yes/no mode)

140. “Spot-lighting”

141. “Spot-lighting”
Is a particularly powerful way of evaluating
the collaborative work happening in the
classroom. When pupils are engaged in
group work periodically ask them to
pause, signal that it is “spotlighting time”,
and then ask one group to resume its
work while a metaphorical spotlight is
shone on them. The role of the rest of the
class is to observe and be prepared to
offer formative feedback as required.

142. “Film stars”

143. “Film stars”
Experiment with filming learning as it
unfolds in the classroom. This footage
provides brilliant opportunities for pupils to
evaluate each other’s work and can be
used to show the difference before and
after feedback has been given.
Photographs can be used in much the
same way.

145. Dictogloss
Make them work for it ……

146. Public peer assessment …

148. Making definitions live …

149. Visual impact ….

154. Progress points ...

156. Competition and challenge …

157. Make them find the
connections…

159. They don’t need to ask you …

160. Put the tools in their hands ….

161. Tantalisers ….

162. ‘Progress bite’ – in other words, a quick
implementation/application task to
demonstrate that pupils have grasped the
main learning point. This could be one
timed paragraph/equation/question which,
again, can be dropped into a lesson at any
point and would serve to provide a
‘portable plenary’.

163. “Portable plenaries"

164. Teach the tiger ….

165.  ‘Explain it to a five year old’ – asking
pupils to simplify and synthesise their
learning in order to explain it to a much
younger pupil really exposes any gaps in
their learning.

166. “Prove It Tasks”

167. Collaborative lesson
planning activity: from
theory to practice

168. Dr Spencer Kagan’s
Cooperative Learning
Structures

169. Jot thoughts ....

171. Rally Robin

172. The Showdown

173. Rally Coach

174. Collective round table ....

175. Stand up, Hand up,
Pair up …`

176. Talking chips ....

177. All too often we
give children cut
flowers when we
should be teaching
them to grow

178. Contact details…
Claire Gadsby , Teaching and Learning
Consultant
Email: Claire.gadsby@hotmail.co.uk
Mobile: 07983 993777
www.clairegadsby.com