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WP_Query Object ( [query] => Array ( [paged] => 2 [pagename] => blog ) [query_vars] => Array ( [paged] => 2 [pagename] => blog [error] => [m] => [p] => 0 [post_parent] => [subpost] => [subpost_id] => [attachment] => [attachment_id] => 0 [name] => [page_id] => 0 [second] => [minute] => [hour] => [day] => 0 [monthnum] => 0 [year] => 0 [w] => 0 [category_name] => [tag] => [cat] => [tag_id] => [author] => [author_name] => [feed] => [tb] => [meta_key] => [meta_value] => [preview] => [s] => [sentence] => [title] => [fields] => [menu_order] => [embed] => [category__in] => Array ( ) [category__not_in] => Array ( ) [category__and] => Array ( ) [post__in] => Array ( ) [post__not_in] => Array ( ) [post_name__in] => Array ( ) [tag__in] => Array ( ) [tag__not_in] => Array ( ) [tag__and] => Array ( ) [tag_slug__in] => Array ( ) [tag_slug__and] => Array ( ) [post_parent__in] => Array ( ) [post_parent__not_in] => Array ( ) [author__in] => Array ( ) [author__not_in] => Array ( ) [ignore_sticky_posts] => [suppress_filters] => [cache_results] => 1 [update_post_term_cache] => 1 [lazy_load_term_meta] => 1 [update_post_meta_cache] => 1 [post_type] => [posts_per_page] => 10 [nopaging] => [comments_per_page] => 50 [no_found_rows] => [order] => DESC ) [tax_query] => WP_Tax_Query Object ( [queries] => Array ( ) [relation] => AND [table_aliases:protected] => Array ( ) [queried_terms] => Array ( ) [primary_table] => ltss_posts [primary_id_column] => ID ) [meta_query] => WP_Meta_Query Object ( [queries] => Array ( ) [relation] => [meta_table] => [meta_id_column] => [primary_table] => [primary_id_column] => [table_aliases:protected] => Array ( ) [clauses:protected] => Array ( ) [has_or_relation:protected] => ) [date_query] => [queried_object] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 40 [post_author] => 1 [post_date] => 2014-04-01 19:08:41 [post_date_gmt] => 2014-04-01 18:08:41 [post_content] => [post_title] => Blog [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => blog [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2018-02-19 14:50:34 [post_modified_gmt] => 2018-02-19 14:50:34 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://jamjarhosting.co.uk/clients/ltss/?page_id=40 [menu_order] => 5 [post_type] => page [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [queried_object_id] => 40 [request] => SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS ltss_posts.ID FROM ltss_posts WHERE 1=1 AND ltss_posts.post_type = 'post' AND (ltss_posts.post_status = 'publish') ORDER BY ltss_posts.post_date DESC LIMIT 10, 10 [posts] => Array ( [0] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 1265 [post_author] => 2223 [post_date] => 2020-11-17 15:03:42 [post_date_gmt] => 2020-11-17 15:03:42 [post_content] => The return of all children to school after lockdown was never going to be easy. As practitioners, we worried that our children would have fallen behind academically. However, how could we begin to ‘fill their learning gaps’ when they might not even feel safe in school anymore? The challenges we faced in September were not only that teaching had changed, from seating plans to the use of equipment, but also that our varying experiences of living through the pandemic had changed us too. With children having spent much less time talking face-to-face with peers, for some even talking to a partner post-lockdown was a challenge. In order to re-establish Let’s Think, I had to consider the more practical elements of tables and chairs as well as the children's emotional responses to group work. Despite this, Let’s Think has been pivotal in re-igniting communication skills and self-esteem. The children have begun supporting each other emotionally and academically again and talking has opened the door for more difficult conversations. For example, a discussion about the uniforms the soldiers wear in ‘The Conquerors’ led to a child revealing how strange he felt not wearing a mask in school. One child quickly reassured the others, explaining how we were 'a bubble' and that was 'like a family’. Following Let’s Think, I often use bridging to help the children to develop their ideas further. Bridging can make what they have thought about relevant by giving it a real application and it can activate and embed learning. Furthermore, effective and meaningful bridging can be approached through creative activities, such as drawing. Last year, I carried out research for my MA dissertation in which the children in my Year 4 class drew and wrote in response to the Aaron Becker Trilogy Let’s Think in English lessons. I wanted to explore whether you could increase confidence, motivation, engagement and enjoyment by turning the focus towards the creative and compositional elements of the writing process and whether an approach that sought to foster creativity, such as integrating drawing, may encourage ‘reluctant’ and underperforming writers. I concluded that it may be valuable for children to use both drawing and writing as a circular, interconnected process which can happen in either direction, insofar as the act of drawing may support writing but it can also create and refine ideas: Similar to Let’s Think, drawing is inclusive and using drawing in the writing process seemed to increase:

• Creativity and subsequently engagement 
• Enjoyment and motivation
• Confidence about themselves as writers.

    One possible reason for this may be that both Let’s Think and drawing encourage children to concentrate on the compositional aspects of writing. When we ask children to write, we require them to focus on ‘mechanics’, such as spelling and handwriting. If a child is pre-occupied with mechanics, especially if they find these elements difficult, a negative consequence may be that they perceive they are not a ‘good’ writer, as they do not value the capabilities they do possess, such as their ability to generate ideas. Therefore, using drawing as a tool feels particularly important at the moment, with some children returning to school with fragile self-esteem.   In the research, the drawings produced by the children seemed to fall into two categories: process drawing, whereby the steps taken to create the image are more important than the outcome, and product drawing, when the final picture is more significant than the practice of making it. Children use both process and product drawing for different reasons. Product drawing encourages a focus on details and could enhance self-esteem. Process drawings help the generation and organisation of ideas and allow these to be re-told and adapted.  Process drawing tends to be used by children more creatively, spontaneously and confidently than product drawing. It also supports more elements of the writing process.     To promote process drawing, it may help to understand the first four key factors outlined in this diagram (in pink): the use of a rubber, time taken, details added and effort involved. By decreasing these, the child would hopefully value the outcome less and adapt images more readily, thus shifting to using drawing as a process.     The diagram below summaries the main influences on writers’ self-perceptions that I observed and that the children identified. Central to the process are the child’s feelings of motivation, engagement, confidence and enjoyment, which could all affect reluctant writing behaviour and drawing self-esteem, or the child’s self-perceptions. As a writer, the child’s positive feelings may be enhanced when given choice and drawing could improve creativity, thus improving engagement. Autonomy can impact positively on the four key feelings. Furthermore, through working together, these feelings are also developed by peer approval and support. Now, more than ever, we need to look after our children’s mental health and encourage them to value the capabilities they possess. Let’s Think and drawing are both tools which both seek to enhance the feelings at the centre of this diagram. By using them in the classroom more often, we can hopefully provide our children with the positive learning experiences they need to support them as they negotiate our ‘new normal’. [post_title] => Using drawing to support bridging as part of Let’s Think [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => using-drawing-to-support-bridging-as-part-of-lets-think [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2020-11-21 12:10:55 [post_modified_gmt] => 2020-11-21 12:10:55 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://www.letsthink.org.uk/?p=1265 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [1] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 1260 [post_author] => 2223 [post_date] => 2020-10-13 13:25:41 [post_date_gmt] => 2020-10-13 12:25:41 [post_content] => I began working with Let’s Think Maths over 15 years ago.  It was a time when it was the norm to split children up by ability, through task differentiation five ways in primary schools and through setting in secondary school.  Procedural teaching was the main focus, with a weekly open-ended problem thrown in, often an unstructured one with no teaching of problem solving strategies.  Talk was not expected in maths lessons, instead it was ‘heads down’, each pupil concentrating on the worksheet they had been given, some moving on to the final challenge at the end of the lesson, usually an opportunity to apply the procedural practice they had been undertaking.  In many classrooms, success mattered and mistakes weren’t wanted. At that time, Let’s Think Maths was like a breath of fresh air, especially for those pupils who had been labelled as ‘low ability’ and resigned to a continual daily intake of lower order number skills practice.  And for the teachers, it was a radically new approach: it was exploratory, many solutions were valid, all pupils could engage and the lowest achievers could shine, by coming up with creative solutions to the problems the class was trying to tackle.   Teachers on Let’s Think professional development programmes found that not only were mistakes and misconceptions interesting to explore, they enabled more effective follow-on teaching.  And they found that teaching in mixed achieving groups really made a difference to the quality of learning, especially for the lowest achievers. So much has changed since that time, and in the majority of maths classrooms.  The radical approaches to teaching mathematics that Let’s Think proposed have become mainstream thanks to a combination of government initiatives and high impact research projects.  Much as we might criticise the DFE’s obsession with and simplistic understanding of international policy borrowing, their focus on mastery mathematics has changed hearts and minds in terms of the value of problem solving, exploring multiple methods, teaching in mixed achieving groups, and the potential for low threshold – high ceiling lessons like Let’s Think.  The DFE has also re-opened the debate about the need for maths to be taught though carefully planned curriculum sequences as exemplified in textbooks and in the Let’s Think Maths schemata.  The Best Practice In Grouping Students research project, led by Professor Becky Francis, has radically changed the way we think about grouping pupils: for the first time, we are seeing huge numbers of secondary schools moving away from early setting in Year 7 towards mixed achieving classes.  The University of Cambridge Dialogic Teaching project has demonstrated the importance of classroom talk across the curriculum, but particularly in mathematics. Let’s Think Maths now fits smoothly into the curriculum and pedagogies of many teachers of mathematics.  And we would like to think that as an organisation advocating changes to the teaching of mathematics over several decades, we played a part in achieving these changes to practice.  I often bump into senior government advisers or mathematics experts in senior roles in mathematics organisations, who remember their CAME training well, and say it continues to inspire them. As Let’s Think Maths now aligns much more easily with the curricula and pedagogies schools are already using, it makes integration a lot simpler for teachers and for pupils.  Lessons are frequently used by teachers to assess: What do they already know and so what should I teach? Have they really learnt what I think I have taught?  The lessons also support the reasoning concept building that a standard mastery curriculum requires.  And the professional development programme is now one that includes many of the recommended research proven approaches to teacher learning:  it has duration, includes opportunities to apply learning into the classroom, operates in iterative cycles of practice and reflection, and is collaborative. The future is brighter for pupils in mathematics lessons – and we hope it continues to move in the right direction with Let’s Think as a key partner. [post_title] => The future of maths is a lot brighter [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => the-future-of-maths-is-a-lot-brighter [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2020-10-13 13:29:49 [post_modified_gmt] => 2020-10-13 12:29:49 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://www.letsthink.org.uk/?p=1260 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [2] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 1246 [post_author] => 2223 [post_date] => 2020-09-28 12:12:31 [post_date_gmt] => 2020-09-28 11:12:31 [post_content] => Whilst our experiences during lockdown, including the current restrictions, will depend on our personal and professional circumstances, the one commonality we all share is how we have had to cope with uncertainty on both a daily and long-term basis. As a natural scientist, I recall learning about Heisenburg’s Uncertainty Principle at university. Based on quantum mechanics, the Principle is that the position and momentum of a particle cannot both be determined with absolute precision; if we know the position, we cannot know precisely the momentum and vice versa. In layman’s terms, the lack of precision means that any determination would be an estimate and therefore conceptually the measurement would have a limit or an inherent uncertainty. The Principle helps us understand that our inability to determine something absolutely creates a boundary to our understanding, beyond which lies uncertainty. At the core of Let’s Think (LT) lessons, the teacher facilitates cognitive activities in order that students experience cognitive conflict; this is when students’ current level of reasoning cannot accommodate a ‘somewhat surprising’ stimulus, which is often presented through a series of problem-solving tasks. Students work together to construct their reasoning in order to resolve the conflict, termed social construction, and teachers, as part of the metacognition stage, ask questions to elicit students’ responses such as how they solved the task, what made it difficult, how their thinking has changed etc. The metaphor of a jigsaw was used by Michael Shayer and Philip Adey, the cofounders of Cognitive Acceleration through Science Education (CASE), as part of the training materials for teachers in the early 1990s. Cognitive conflict was represented by a jigsaw puzzle; social construction involved peers working together to discuss and agree the strategy to resolve the puzzle; and metacognition promoted students’ conscious explanations of the strategy so it could be applied to other jigsaws. During lockdown, I have reflected on LT lessons and the promotion of cognitive conflict which inherently creates uncertainty. The success of a lesson is not determined by the resolution of the conflict but rather that it has been experienced; therefore students’ cognitive development requires them to experience uncertainty. During my eight years as Headteacher of Ruislip High School, I have talked to the Year 7 students at the beginning of their secondary career about Let’s Think lessons, in particular the importance of welcoming the challenge in lessons and knowing that at the end of a LT lesson they may feel slightly confused. I believe LT lessons equip students with the firsthand experience that uncertainty is part of our lives; problems can be dealt with by working collaboratively; and our conscious reasoning helps us to make adaptations as and when necessary. Whilst this current multi-faceted jigsaw puzzle of the pandemic is unlikely to be resolved without a vaccine, our responsibility as educators is to prepare our students to deal with uncertainty as part of life and to know that the boundaries created by it are an opportunity for the next generation to explore beyond our current level of understanding for a new and brighter future. [post_title] => The value of uncertainty [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => the-value-of-uncertainty [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2020-09-28 13:49:35 [post_modified_gmt] => 2020-09-28 12:49:35 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://www.letsthink.org.uk/?p=1246 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [3] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 1238 [post_author] => 2223 [post_date] => 2020-09-07 16:38:37 [post_date_gmt] => 2020-09-07 15:38:37 [post_content] => Let’s Think in English Tutor, Leah Crawford taught LT sessions to her extended family via Zoom through the spring and summer of lockdown. Below is the final post republished for the Let’s Think community.  Uplifting and painful in equal measure, it feels like a fitting way of summarising what we have been through together.   Life was getting busier for everyone.  Lots of work and school distractions were putting a strain on family meeting times. Whereas before a session might have been the main event of the day, it was now something we all had to make the time for and commit to. So I started the session with some reflections.  Scope the collective past to bring us in to the collective moment.  I asked the family if they thought we had become better at thinking together.  There was a visible affirmation in eyes and nods and body language. Okay – so how are we better? Our answers are longer.  So at the start you would have to ask questions to tease out more detail, but now we just do it. There’s more discipline in waiting your turn (my Dad looks comically askance at my Mum...) We’re listening more actively How can you tell? Because we’re building on what others say I’ve noticed we’re all more confident to share but particularly our young folk.  It’s been lovely to see that. And confident to disagree. Thanks everyone.  That sounds like something you should be proud of. So in preparation, I had told everyone the lesson was called ‘Dream deferred’ and to check the meaning of deferred.  I also asked them to think about whether they had ever had a dream and what barriers there may be to accomplishing a dream. Quite sensitive stuff. And do teenagers want to share their dreams when their dreams may still be shimmering in the distance, fragile yet imaginable? Have you ever had a dream? The adults led the way. So this takes me back to my teenage self, growing up on a rural inland island on the west coast of Norway. These days, the thin strip of fjord surrounding the island has been bridged and the island is accessible and escapable 24/7, but when I was young the connection to the mainland, and to civilisation, relied on a small ferryboat that docked up at 10pm every night. It gave us a strong sense of security – it was a place where no one locked their doors, believing any rotten eggs would be stopped at the ferry. But it also added to the sense of stifling claustrophobia. The place felt very insular and cut-off in every sense. While biding my time, I travelled in my dreams, to other times and other places. English was my favourite subject and England the object of my girlish dreams. The flickering flames of my naive passions were fed and stoked by tomes of Regency romantic novels. Sometimes I would make random and pricey long-distance calls to shops in England only to be able to practise my favourite foreign tongue. I got in real trouble.  In between reading and dreaming, I vividly remember sitting at the end of a narrow, weather-beaten wooden pier, knowing that this was as far away and to the west I could physically get in the moment, but trusting that my time would come. Once I was old enough, I would cross the divide. I would become one of those who got away. Stillness. This from my sister in law who has married an Englishman, and lives in London.  What made the poignancy of her dream all the more arresting was that she was speaking with such passion from a small flat in lockdown, in the midst of the hot city, with no garden or balcony.  I thanked her for sharing such a moving and personal story. So the barrier to this dream being realised was mainly age but also opportunity. Would anyone else be happy to share a dream? I have an odd story. (my Dad) When I was in the Upper Sixth at Holt Grammar School, we had a heck of a first football team.  We got to the finals of the Merseyside Grammar Schools’ Cup and were supposed to play at Goodison Park (Everton’s home ground.)  It turned out that the ground was closed at the time and we only got to use the training ground.  We played the game – it was a close 2-2 draw and it was decided we would share the title.   We all walked away knowing that we had something really special as a team but wouldn’t get to play together again, as we were going off to jobs and university.  I often thought about those times and the closeness and skill of the team, but something happened to make me see it all differently. After started at Uni in Manchester, I went back to school, it must have been for a prize-giving or something, and bumped into the old lab technician, Charlie Parker.  A lovely man.  He asked how I was, but then asked what I thought of the time I had been spotted by the talent scout.  I had to tell him I had no idea what he was talking about.  So it turns out that a talent scout from Everton had seen me play and, as it was in those days, gone straight to may Headmaster to suggest that I was signed up for the youth team.  He had told the scout ‘Don’t touch that boy.  He’s going to university.  He’s going places.’ How do you feel about that Dad? Even at the time, I don’t think I would have said any different.  But it’s strange that for so many young footballers that would have been the ultimate dream and at the time, I wasn’t even told. Now my Dad is an LFC fanatic.  It’s like a religion.  This was pre Bill Shankly days.  Liverpool FC were still Second Division, but Everton a First Division side.  So football was and is a huge part of his life.  But it turns out his dream of a working class boy becoming a research scientist was bigger - and was realised. On the back of this story, we talked about how other people’s view of you can be a barrier.  This could easily have been painful memory.  A sliding doors moment. My brother summarised at this point that it seemed important to distinguish between the barriers to dreams that are painful or those that are just about plausibility.  There are dreams of being an astronaut and playing for your favourite football club, but for most of us these don’t cause any pain.  We know they won’t come true and we don’t really try to make them come true.  There are so many barriers to achieving these dreams that we don't really aim for them.  They’re just fun to imagine. So this could be really helpful for us moving forward – are the barriers to a dream causing pain or are they just a reality that we can accept? Let’s read the text and think

• How does the poet feel about the dream being deferred’

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over— like a syrupy sweet?   Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.   Or does it explode?   Let’s Think veterans will know this is the early social construction phase of the lesson, a space to build shared meanings.  However I went through my own early cognitive conflict.  My reading of the poet’s feelings has always been exclusively negative: the explosion in the finale is an angry outburst.  The family, without much need of me now, took their thoughts in two considered directions.  The raisin and the syrupy sweet could be positive images that are interspersed with the festering sore and stinking meat.  And those strings of questions – the poet isn’t sure if being deferred will lead to sweetness or decay.  Equally, some read the explosion as an angry outburst, but some thought this was an moment of escape, a metaphor for freedom.  I asked if the final line could mean both destruction and freedom and the group agreed this could be the case. Like a revolution. When asked what title they would devise for the poem, most were happy to use Dream Deferred but more positive possibilities like Dream Realised and Freedom were also contemplated. Harlem The poem is called Harlem The title was revealed and background information about the district of Harlem, the Harlem Renaissance and the poet Langston Hughes was shared. It was beautiful to listen to how the adults supported our younger folk through this shift in frame of reference.  My Mum and Dad lived in California in the 60’s and talked about the Civil Rights riots that mirrored the Harlem riots in downtown LA, supported by the students in Berkeley.  They took us back to that final line in the poem.  It was a fearful time: there was anger and violence, but there was hope in the air that a country built on racism might begin to face up to its history and work for change.

• Does the title change your view of the poem? 

A teenage voice piped up We've been thinking about the poem as one person’s dream but now it's about a group of people. It feels like it matters much more now. Some adults mused that they had not thought before about how a poem’s meaning suddenly shifts when you know its social and political history.  A quietness and a slowness of pace came upon the group.  I did not ask for an explanation of this. Same text: different frame I then explained that we were going to experience the poem in a different context.  The video we were about to watch was a Nike branding advertisement, released just before the Beijing Olympics in 2008.  We talked a little about the difference between a branding advert compared to sales: my sister who worked in marketing coming in to her own with this concise definition ‘a brand is a compelling promise consistently delivered.’  So we thought we would watch the advert and try to tease out the ‘compelling promise’.  I shared the star,  Sonya Richards’ personal story of injury and struggle: that she was on the brink of not qualifying for the Olympics, then crossed the line with one final, explosive qualifying race. You can watch the ad here

• Why might Nike have used Langston Hughes’ poem to promote their brand?
• Is it appropriate for Nike to use his poem to promote their brand?

True cognitive conflict ensued.  Some did not like the advert at all: neither its style, its use of the poem or the way the poem was read. Our ten year old female Londoner liked the way that the ‘brand’ included all generations of Black American women. A young girl can watch this and think ‘This could be me.  I could do that too.’” People began to re-read the poem. Sonya’s run is nothing like the festering sore running in the poem.  But we can see how her dream was drying up and sagging like a load. The athletic explosion at the end becomes something that can only be positive whereas we saw a tension in the ending. But if you notice those three generations of black women in the film, Nike might be trying to make the link between her struggle and their struggle. Did they do any more than release the advert? ...adds my 15 year old. It’s like those companies who buy their way into the London Pride March, but don't do anything to support LGBTQ rights.  Do they put their money where their mouth is? We did not reach a consensus and I didn’t push for one.  I think this is one of those questions that disturbs your thinking and opens you up and it’s best to stay in that disequilibrium.

• Does the poem still have resonance today?

The group did agree that the poem still had resonance – not just as a social and political text about a people and a movement, a dream still deferred in too many ways, but for anyone whose dreams have been restricted by the opportunities open to them or by how other see them. What happens to a dream deferred? Langston Hughes’ Harlem was a prism through which we explored each others’ dreams, moments from our past histories as well as the pride, pain and living struggle of Black history. One week later George Floyd was murdered. That Sunday we paused the lessons and spoke only of this.   End of an era This will be the final Let’s Think in Lockdown blog. We completed a total of 13 sessions together.  That’s 14 people and a small sausage dog making the time to improve and expand their thinking through texts and through each other.  Yes, we were in lockdown.  Yes, I know we had nowhere else to go.  But choosing to sit together in front of a screen for over an hour a week, focused intently on a text and each other’s thoughts brought us closer together in a way we never would have dreamed of. I’ll leave you with my Mum. Let’s Think family sessions have evoked distant memories and led me to explore the ideas rattling around in my head in lockdown. Let’s Think is a powerful process, I have been enticed into reading extracts of texts from so many various sources and enjoyed and been rewarded by the exploration process. The vivid imaginings of the youngsters, the measured approaches of the students, the learned embellishments of the wise and good and the opportunity for us ‘wrinklies’ to still feel valued and able to contribute. This has been such a rewarding exercise for all of us.  We are learning that we need to listen to each other to expand our thinking. A valuable lesson anywhere. [post_title] => Let's Think in Lockdown Blog 8: Still dreaming of change [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => lets-think-in-lockdown-blog-8-still-dreaming-of-change [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2020-09-07 18:09:29 [post_modified_gmt] => 2020-09-07 17:09:29 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://www.letsthink.org.uk/?p=1238 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [4] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 1214 [post_author] => 2223 [post_date] => 2020-06-09 14:15:59 [post_date_gmt] => 2020-06-09 13:15:59 [post_content] => Imagine being in the thick of teaching a Let’s Think lesson.  Now imagine you could press pause and invite some world leading academics into your classroom to give their insights?   What if you had on hand Professors Neil Mercer, Patricia Alexander or Lauren Resnick to help you consider the development of thinking through talk.  What if you had Piaget available to point you to features of thinking indicative of the student’s development? Because you had paused those moments of teaching, each distinguished researcher would offer a different ‘lens’ through which you could reflect on the development of thinking.  What indicators might they point you to?  You could discuss with them why they, above other noticeable features, are worthy of note.   Might the new ‘lens' they offer have implications for the moves you go on to make as a teacher to promote the development of thinking? The Let’s Think Forum has been involved in a trans-national partnership to help teachers with insights into the development of thinking.  Where it has proven especially useful to UK teachers is the bridge the project has created between distinguished researchers, their sometimes obscure research literature and assessment tools that have use in the classroom.  We have been able to provide well-researched ‘lenses’ that have helped teachers see their classrooms anew, providing real time insights into the hidden events in their classroom. The project, ACTS: Assessment Companion for Thinking Skills will be published later next year. It has involved a two year development and trial of the ‘lenses’ or assessment tools as we call them within the project. What teachers have said about their use of the assessment tools and their engagement in the project suggests that the tools have value and even a wider use….. To see their classrooms through new lenses: “The tools help us to see differently, and in detail to help form observations based on deeper theories of education, thinking and learning “ACTS is a teacher’s journey through a different thinking process.” It is really interesting how many of us used the tools to help move on our students! Helping our understanding of what they think and how they think.” “The extra reading (about the research background) supported the understanding of the tool.” To go beyond the use of the tool with Let’s Think: “The tools are flexible so they can be widened or sharpened to suit the school need/context.” “It (the use of the assessment tool) developed from a Let’s Think lesson to be applied to other lessons.” To recognise that the project had impacted their general practice:  “ACTS is really a CPD package to help teachers gain an insight into thinking in a classroom.”  “I found the ACTS CPD a more worthwhile CPD as it really allowed review of own practice and the tools were easily adaptable.” The range of assessment tools the Let’s Think Forum team have created have been helping teachers discriminate between useful discourse and less helpful interactions.  They have shown teachers the value of creating the conditions for ‘productive failure’ in a way that helps develop pupil reasoning. They have provided the progress prompts that move students from relational thinking to relational reasoning and helped teachers see the significance of their actions in planning for these events.   They have also supported teachers understand development in terms of Piaget, an accomplished piece of wisdom for any teacher, and in relation to the complexity of reasoning in a task using SOLO taxonomy.

Closed: defensive or presentational	Learners...
	Present ideas as closed and final Defend a position to self-protect See discourse as competition	Agree with others in order to protect them Agree with others to avoid thinking or to avoid conflict
Open: exploratory	Learners...
	Offer ideas to the group for discussion Give reasons and evidence Consider alternatives	Rehearse and play with the ideas of others to make sense of them Build on the ideas of others

 Observing a lesson, watching a video or reading a transcript of a lesson, discuss:

• Do the teacher and learners have an open or closed orientation to each other?
• Does this shift according to phases in the lesson or according to who is speaking?
• What are some of the indicators that suggest the culture of talk in this classroom?

Working as part of a strategic trans-national partnership Thanks to Erasmus Plus EU funding, the project enabled the UK team to work alongside colleagues from Finland and Latvia, who brought different perspectives to the project coming from their own education traditions. We believe we have some refreshing and helpful assessment tools whose use will be illustrated by examples of classroom practice that we hope to be able to share at the beginning of next year when we have concluded the trials and the project.  If you would like to sample an assessment tool then please contact us. [email protected]   [post_title] => Developing pupils’ thinking skills [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => developing-pupils-thinking-skills [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2020-06-09 14:52:52 [post_modified_gmt] => 2020-06-09 13:52:52 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://www.letsthink.org.uk/?p=1214 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [5] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 1186 [post_author] => 2223 [post_date] => 2020-05-07 13:50:52 [post_date_gmt] => 2020-05-07 12:50:52 [post_content] => As I write, schools in the UK and across most of the globe are closed.  I have been continuing to support trainee teachers, school leaders and their teams and my own children at home.  It didn’t take long to realise that however creative we try to be, remote learning provision alone will always be a poor substitute to learning in the social ecosystem of the classroom or training venue. The ticking engine of every Let’s Think lesson is the minute to minute, live social construction of understanding.  If students are truly developing new understanding – not consolidating existing understanding – then adult mediation and collaboration with peers is essential.  Cognitive processes are shaped in and by our social context. I’m admitting to myself as I write this, that I’m sounding not only dry, but disconnected from the human and emotional dimensions of the impact of Covid 19 and the current lockdown.  So, it’s going to be much harder for many students to make cognitive progress without being in school.  Aren’t we actually more worried by their social and emotional well-being?  School aged children are in the process of becoming themselves, shaping their sense of who they are and their worth through interactions with others.

Well-being or intelligence?

We’ll cut back to my own situation for a moment.  Thinking about my extended family, nephews and nieces, my head was firmly in the well-being camp.  How could we stay connected in lockdown?  Sure, we were bound to try some video-calls, but these are notoriously hard with lots of participants.  What we’d need is some kind of engaging structure.  There are only so many quiz nights one can bear....  Then I thought about how silent and solitary our young people’s remote learning was going to be, however hard their schools were trying to keep the show on the road.  What did we have to lose? ‘So, I’ve been thinking.  I do this thing called Let’s Think.  I think it could work in family teams.  We do some thinking and puzzling about texts together.  It could feel like a fun challenge.  What do you think?” They were in.  As with every extended family in the current climate, this is a group not without its distractions and anxieties.  I did not bombard them with the theory behind the programme or its potential cognitive benefits.  What I did do, however, was take the connection and climate of the social group very seriously.  When you ask a group of people aged 10 -79 to think together, honestly, openly and aloud, particularly on a video call where all sorts of social signals can be lost, the social emotional stakes are high, however close we believe ourselves to be.  Families are constantly under construction. So, I sent out guidelines for engagement: “What could be tricky is that we are used to being playful together for playful’s sake – to make each other laugh, to connect.  There’s nothing wrong in that.  I’m hoping this will feel like fun, working through some questions and problems together, but the idea is not to say the funniest thing or to win an argument.  It may be helpful to talk through these guidelines together: When you work in your family group:

• Everyone should have the chance to contribute
• Explain your ideas, rather than just state them
• Listen to the ideas of others and share what you think about them
• Respect and consider differences – they are often useful
• Try to work towards a family group response that you will share with the whole group when we come back together

As I could rely on some adult mediation, for each session I sent out some guidelines on preparing for the session, the reading matter, and the first social construction question.  Each video call session could then open with a swift review of the concrete preparation and move to the negotiated family response: ‘We thought...’  ‘We talked about...’  which quite quickly became ‘Well, we just couldn’t agree because....’  I stuck to my principles and cued in our young folk to speak for their family group, even though I could see some worried eye-movements, hear their initial uncertainty, a certain lack of confidence and a lack of elaboration in their answers.  Cruel?  Yes – a bit of me felt so – particularly as their aunty, but the ‘tutor on autopilot’ knew this was no time to change the rules and rely on confident, elaborated adult responses to move through the sessions.  We would lose the kids in no time – mentally and physically.

So where are we?

If I had had to predict what would happen back then, I think I would have admitted that we would work through three, maybe four sessions, then return to the odd family quiz.  In fact we are nine sessions in.  The group initially wanted two sessions a week.  As the kids’ schools have found their feet and home learning has a more regular rhythm, we are back to weekend only sessions.  It is our young people who have pressed for more sessions, asked for the video calls to go through their devices and sat increasingly centre stage in their family group. I have my own thoughts about what may be happening here.  If you would like to follow my more detailed account of each session, I am blogging my reflections here. Have we been attending to well-being or intelligence? To close this blog, I’d prefer to include some reflections from family members:     I feel more than ever that the kind of disciplined inquiry that is Let’s Think could be key to managing the return to learning together in-school and being together in school.                         [post_title] => Let’s Think in Lockdown [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => lets-think-in-lockdown [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2020-05-11 11:51:01 [post_modified_gmt] => 2020-05-11 10:51:01 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://www.letsthink.org.uk/?p=1186 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [6] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 1166 [post_author] => 2223 [post_date] => 2020-03-09 19:25:00 [post_date_gmt] => 2020-03-09 19:25:00 [post_content] => * CASE stands for Cognitive Acceleration through Science Education and is an enrichment programme that includes a series of 30 lessons that develop scientific reasoning in Key Stage 3. Recently I have been supporting twelve schools across the Tees Valley to use CASE.  In all of the schools I was able to work with someone who was just like me, when I started using CASE all those years ago in 1992. The whole experience has been very powerful, for teaching in so many different schools has afforded me some significant insights into the thinking of students and their cognitive needs at the start of their secondary school career. In this blog I will pick out a couple of recent episodes that can be used to highlight the continuing role that CASE has to play in the cognitive development of adolescents. Very early on in my own CASE teaching, I came to realise that the words students use to describe their ideas (ratio will be used here as an example) in response to CASE lessons afford you a window into how good their thinking is, and therefore how well students might do in a formal written assessment. This in turn should inform the planning of a sequence of activities, which can support the gaps that may emerge as a consequence. A key feature of CASE is the notion of cognitive conflict: giving the students a problem that cannot easily be solved by any one individual with their current level of thinking. The lesson in question was concerned with proportion as a special case of ratio, that requires the students to be able to see a common ratio regardless of the individual sizes involved.  The students were challenged to work out how it is possible to calculate how tall someone is from their forearm length (the actual ratio involved is 1:6 for humans). Behind me two girls were arguing because one of them felt that although her friend got “times by six” it would be different for her because she is much taller. In CASE the teacher takes on the role of a facilitator so rather than jumping in, they orchestrate the feedback, enabling the idea of “we are all times by 6” to emerge naturally. Students realise that this is because the relationship between arm length and height, in humans, is a constant one. CASE uses a Piagetian analysis of demand to highlight the steps that could be taken as students develop their understanding of ratio beyond simple multiplications towards; proportion, scale, compound variables and even equilibria systems. In Piagetian terms many students as they start secondary school are ‘concrete’ thinkers.  Their thinking is linked to the context in which they first encounter the idea. What higher level GCSE performance requires, is for students to be able to apply the concept into new and unfamiliar contexts, so their thinking about ratio is a tool that can be used to model, compare and explore a whole range of different relationships. When looking at the lessons with one group of teachers, we used a thinking scale with statements on proportional reasoning showing increasing complexity of thought.  The scale was developed from Shayer and Adey’s (1981) Towards a Science of Science Teaching and the idea is to map out the development of thinking in relation to proportional reasoning from the most simple (concrete operational thinking) to the most complex (termed formal operational thinking). The teachers easily saw how a particular CASE lesson could support the development of thinking but it was the table that triggered the most reflection. Half of those in the room started to realise why so many of their KS4 classes were struggling with the demands of the GCSE.  From the statements, they were able to see that many of these students were thinking in very concrete ways. The GCSE curriculum they had to ‘cover’ required a certain level of thinking that these students were struggling with. One teacher suggested that they might use the CASE lessons to support the thinking of older students, as a way to help them begin to grasp the fact that a sense of ratio allows them to balance equations and also work out the scaling questions they are always asked in Biology. It is worth pointing out that these schools are not alone in their growing realisation of how CASE can help students in secondary science.  Many teachers are revisiting CASE and CAME, in response to a curriculum that favours a linear model of progression that does not take students’ actual cognitive levels into account. Shayer, M. and Adey, P., 1981. Towards a science of science teaching: Cognitive development and curriculum demand. Heinemann. [post_title] => Has it really been three decades? Revisiting CASE* in 2020 [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => has-it-really-been-three-decades-revisiting-case-in-2020 [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2020-03-09 19:25:00 [post_modified_gmt] => 2020-03-09 19:25:00 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://www.letsthink.org.uk/?p=1166 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [7] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 1121 [post_author] => 2223 [post_date] => 2019-07-05 14:54:47 [post_date_gmt] => 2019-07-05 13:54:47 [post_content] => Climate and the weather  “The weather forecasters are always getting it wrong, it promised rain all day but look at this sunshine!” “This is global warming, is it?” The everyday descriptions of weather, forecasting and the causes of our experienced weather are riddled with misconceptions.  Weather forecasting is expected to be precise rather than probabilistic. We attribute the causes of a weather event to the weather itself and we’re often confused by climatic patterns that have a longer timescale and greater geographic reach than the moment by moment shifts in temperature and dewpoint that cause the rain that spoils our enjoyment of a sunny day. As weather amateurs we can rely on the views of the ‘so-called experts’, or trust our own past experience and the sometimes accurate lore of a world before science. ‘Red sky at night’ thinking.  So we carry an umbrella, a coat and some hope! As climate amateurs we might ignore the evidence of incremental change in global temperatures because of our immediate experience of the weather.  We might therefore hope that climate change will go away or even deny that there is any causal link. The difference is that although an umbrella is adequate for weather it is a poor defence against climate! Parkinson’s disease and the RCT My mother had Parkinson’s disease for over 15 years before she passed away last October.  She had a slow progressing form of the disease unlike Philip Adey, one of the originators of Let’s Think who sadly lost his health so quickly.   My mother would have been very interested in the recent BBC documentary on GDNF, a nerve growth factor first identified from mouse tumours.  In patients such as Darren Calder it had profound effects, life changing and ‘miraculous’ but it also involved an expensive and risky process of administering the drug directly into the brain. The current view is that such promising interventions be subject to larger scale Randomised Control Trials, RCTs.  This is a model of verification based on medical trials that has been broadly successful in identifying investment worthy drugs and procedures.  In an RCT as large a number of potentially willing recipients is gathered. The members of the group are randomly assigned to the proposed intervention or a non-intervention (sometimes a mock intervention such as a placebo).  After it is believed that sufficient time has elapsed for the treatment to have had the effect the results of both cohorts, treatment and non-treatment are statistically compared using the measures of independent evaluators to see if there is a significant difference.  This would seem to provide the necessary proof, uncontroversial evidence that something works, or does not. As such it has been employed within medicine for decades and within education in the more recent past. There are however some significant issues with the approach, as good as it is.

• For an RCT to be successful the treatment has to be uniformly and consistently applied in line with the hypothesis it is based upon.
• The RCT relies on agreement about the intended effect and a shared view on appropriate measures.
• An RCT ignores the positive and negative effects on individuals that may be based on their unique circumstances in favour of the overall impact on the group. Ignoring these circumstances is felt necessary in an RCT because a view has to be taken on whether the treatment can be replicated outside the trial.
• Some interventions can only be conducted with small groups either due to recruitment or the cost or risk or disruption of the intervention.
• Randomisation of smaller groups ignores the profound effects of differences between the two groups that could be balanced by stratification and more adequate blinding..
• The endpoints in an RCT can be poorly selected, often with a preference for easily assessed endpoints.
• There is little use of selection criteria for the individuals in an RCT trial and particularly responsive and other unsuitable individuals affect the results markedly, and especially so in smaller cohorts.
• An RCT is inappropriate if there is insufficient sample size or power to make claims that would impact many future recipients.

Although the GDNF trial had a profound effect on some recipients like Darren it had an effect size overall that was inconclusive using the measures. Thus it was considered to have failed the RCT test.  But further research into the brain scans taken in tandem with the assessments show promise, even though these were not part of the original assessment regime. Let’s Think How are weather reporting, climate predictions and trials of Parkinson’s interventions informative for Let’s Think? Let’s Think is an intervention that has a long term outcome, delayed over years, but is made up of numerous short term events and actions. Like our attempts to halt and reverse climate change it aims at a change that is incremental in the short term but which has profound benefits in the long term. Its proposal for teaching is based on a hypothesis of long term development and brain activity. It’s benefits are measured by cognitive gains. Let’s Think addresses the challenging evidence that, despite apparent increases in academic success, there is an underlying decline in cognitive ability as measured by Piagetian tests. This is the ‘climate change’ that is happening in our classrooms, the unnoticed change in performance hidden by the annually reported ‘weather’. Within Let’s Think there is a broad prescription for teacher activity to address the ‘climate change’ but the teacher, like a meteorologist is expected to use the many assessments and data points that come from her class to forecast the next most effective move in the ‘weather’ of the classroom.  Although the ‘weather’ of her classroom is the most important experience in the short term; long term it’s a change in the ‘climate’ that has the most profound effect on the child. The climate of challenge, co-operation and construction, reflected on together in a mixed class has to be created by each Let’s Think teacher out of the weather of everyday classroom life and it is this that addresses the underlying climate change, the decline in cognitive ability. The Let’s Think Forum has gathered ample evidence of the underlying decline in cognition and also has evidence from many small scale and international trials of the positive impact on cognitive gains for children as young as 5 and as old as 14.  In particular from Let’s Think interventions in mathematics and science. Our goal is to regularly replicate the positive effects of halting cognitive decline that have been seen in smaller and quasi experimental trials in larger scale trials.  We also aim to communicate and clarify the Let’s Think intervention so that it can be used with precision by teachers. Previous Randomised Control Trials, RCTs, such as that for the Education Endowment Funded Let’s Think Secondary Science showed, like the Parkinson’s trial, no conclusive evidence of effect with the measures that were used. Fortunately, unlike the Parkinson’s trial, there is very little risk in implementing Let’s Think in secondary science because in the trial taking away the ‘normal’ science lessons caused no decline in the gains of scientific knowledge in test schools compared to control schools. In addition the trial revealed that there were significant benefits experienced by teachers to their general ability to question and to promote engaging lessons.  Importantly it also revealed the difficulties experienced by teachers to develop a co-operative climate where students worked on challenges and reflected together on their efforts. Something we would want to work on especially in secondary settings with future interventions.   [post_title] => How can we ever be sure? Thoughts on climate, Parkinson’s disease and Let’s Think [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => how-can-we-ever-be-sure-thoughts-on-climate-parkinsons-disease-and-lets-think [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2019-07-05 14:54:54 [post_modified_gmt] => 2019-07-05 13:54:54 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://www.letsthink.org.uk/?p=1121 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [8] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 1115 [post_author] => 2223 [post_date] => 2019-06-03 20:09:50 [post_date_gmt] => 2019-06-03 19:09:50 [post_content] => It’s almost twenty years since I first started to lead Let’s Think Mathematics courses. Many things have changed that influence the decisions tutors make about the way different aspects are covered, not least the changes to the mathematics curriculum. While Let’s Think activities are not dependent on national initiatives, being aware of the climate in which teachers are working helps to forge positive relationships with the participants. A focus on teachers’ subject knowledge comes and goes but it can’t be denied that this is an important aspect in a teacher’s repertoire of skills and competences.  For me, one of the most interesting roles for a Let’s Think tutor is to spot opportunities within the lessons to enhance teachers’ knowledge of mathematics and to help them develop a deeper understanding of the relationships between concepts within the subject. Many teachers in primary schools express their lack of confidence in the subject and the Let’s think programmes often provide a safe place to discuss what they see as deficiencies in their own learning. It’s a great moment when someone who feels nervous about their understanding about a particular topic, ‘sees the light’ for the first time in what might be many years. It doesn’t come about because the tutor has set out to teach something explicitly, but rather, through breaking the concept down to its basic level and building understanding from scratch. This is a fundamental approach when tutors simulate lessons as part of the training. Some Let’s Think lessons seem to exemplify this theme time and time again.  Take the lesson ‘Sharing an Apple’. Early on in the first episode, students are asked to explain the written fraction ½. In the simulation, teachers, like their students, offer a number of suggestions – The 2 means two parts, the 1 is how many of those parts, the / is ‘out of’. So ½ means 1 out of 2. Or, 1 divided by 2. Other fractions are explored including ¼, 2/3  and ¾. It is usual for everyone to agree with the ‘out of’ description, but much discussion takes place about the ‘divided by’ aspect. Can ¾ be 3 divided by 4? How could you show this visually? It’s not unusual for disagreement in people’s views. An excellent example of cognitive conflict! This is further challenged when the tutor writes a/b and asks what that means. Someone will answer a divided by b and refer to their own time at secondary school. The small-group discussions that follow are fascinating and its common to hear it stated ‘I never knew this – now it makes sense’! A lesson written for younger pupils ‘Giant’s Palace, explores place value using the relationship of smaller parts to a whole, comparing smaller and smaller footsteps, combining them and evolving a way of writing the total. The first time I used this lesson was a real eye-opener for me and the teachers. I took for granted that they all understood place-value and was not expecting the ensuing discussion. Several teachers were intrigued to see how the context of the story enabled the concept of place-value to be exemplified so visually. For some it demonstrated how the position of digits in a number related to their value. ‘Now I see’, said one teacher, to be followed by other similar comments and smiles from some quite unsure members of the group. It seems that teachers of mathematics in secondary schools, can also develop clearer understanding and enhance their subject knowledge through the Let’s Think approach. One of my favourite lessons, Pencils and Rulers, starts by using a grid to find the total costs for different combinations, eg 4 pencils and 6 rulers, when the unit cost is known. The lesson develops where grids show a selection of total costs and the unit cost has to be deduced in order to complete the grid. Shorthand methods are encouraged to show results Eg 3p + 4r = 36, and 2p + 5r = 38. I then write these underneath one other and ask the group where they have seen such notation. 3p + 4r = 36 2p + 2r = 20 Simultaneous equations! They are then given pairs of equations and have to solve them using a grid. The groups are then challenged to explain how the grids and the formal notion are linked. It’s a really good example of developing reasoning – a key principle within the Let’s Think approach. I’ve experienced all sorts of emotional responses to the activity. Many non-specialists start by feeling very insecure and even anxious when the topic of simultaneous equations is introduced, but by the end of the session there is a shared feeling of success and a sense of real achievement. Specialist teachers of mathematics can be quite surprised at how a very simple idea develops into something quite complex and difficult to teach. On one course, a head of department stated that she was going to teach the lesson to her colleagues and re-write the school’s scheme of work so the lesson could be included. The richness of the Let’s Think lessons caters for very different levels of experience and competence, for students and teachers alike. For some, it is about building up knowledge and understanding from simple ideas within concrete contexts. For others, it’s the other way round. Start with the formal abstract idea or algorithm and unpick it to find the basic principles. In mixed KS2/3 courses, this happens all the time and one of the great benefits is that teachers’ subject knowledge is enhanced by working together. An idea that underpins Let’s Think work regardless of age or aptitude.   [post_title] => Enhancing teachers’ subject knowledge and developing reasoning [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => enhancing-teachers-subject-knowledge-and-developing-reasoning [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2019-06-03 20:09:50 [post_modified_gmt] => 2019-06-03 19:09:50 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://www.letsthink.org.uk/?p=1115 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [9] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 1100 [post_author] => 2223 [post_date] => 2019-04-04 13:51:16 [post_date_gmt] => 2019-04-04 12:51:16 [post_content] => I have noticed the phrase “When did x become a thing?” spreading in many areas of discourse. Maybe this is a sound bite form of protest against interesting and complex ideas being reduced to something over simple. Metacognition has become a much discussed “thing” in education since the EEF and other influencers have started using it as one of the “things” that work. This is also in line with many pithy simplification “memes” such as “learning is a change in long term memory” that are gaining status through over reproduction through social media. As Let’s Think programmes have been developing the use of metacognition for decades I propose a way of discussing metacognition more as a process of taking back control of cognition rather than a tool in a toolkit. The two key ideas I want to explore are metacognition as “coordinating evidence and claim” Kuhn (1999) and “increasing learners representational capacity” Demetriou and Spanoudis (2018). These ideas clearly extend the concept of learning beyond just changes in memory. [caption id="attachment_1101" align="alignnone" width="374"] Figure 4. Really Raising Standards[/caption]   The CASE (Thinking through Science) lesson Floating and Sinking challenges students to consider the role of volume and mass of different vessels and come to a rule that explains whether these vessels will sink or float in water.  The students are presented with five opaque plastic bottles of equal volume but increasing mass. Then they are shown six opaque plastic bottles of equal mass but decreasing volume. Also a mystery bottle for which they have to predict whether it will float or sink based on the floating rule they have developed as a claim. I remember teaching  this lesson several times some 20 years ago and following  the lesson script where the first five equal volume vessels were demonstrated which led to cognitive conflict and a group social construction discussion ensued. In training teachers in my school I basically followed this pathway through this lesson during co-teaching and CASE training. However, when I started teaching this age group again, three years ago, the ideas of Kuhn and Demetriou and my own 20 years experience of adapting CASE pedagogy to different subjects and age groups had given me a new emphasis. This was making metacognition explicit at every stage in a lesson. The strategy I used was Predict, Explain, Observe and Explain. This is a modified version of POE (Predict Observe Explain) that goes back to White and Gunstone (1992). All of the five equal volume vessels had been presented to the class. Typical responses for Predict and explain were “All of them would float because large things float just like big ships float” or “They are all heavy and heavy things sink like rocks do” “or some will float and others will sink and the lightest will float”. Then each of the five vessels were tested and at each observation  a lot of monitoring and evaluation of their claims was made available. The evidence supporting their claims and the representation of their rules and inferences were challenged. After each observation a social construction and metacognition discussion ensued. As the floating or sinking results come in each offers an opportunity to monitor thinking, evaluate the rules they had thought about and plan a new way of thinking. Nascent ideas of the compound variable schema emerge  at various times during these discussions. Mediating these ideas, allows for a more detailed monitoring of how inefficiently the single variable schema coordinated the claims students had made and the evidence of floating or sinking. The form of representation shown in Figure 4 makes clear that the problem cannot be solved by just centring on the volume of the object or the mass of the object. This allows a metarepresentation of the two unsatisfactory claims and suggests the schema of compounding the two variables. The normal CASE lesson could not be completed in an hour because this intense cycling through the four pillars of Cognitive Acceleration pedagogy obviously takes more time than the normal lesson plan.  I believe this leads to a significantly more productive awareness of the ways of the reasoning established through this sustained intellectual endeavour. This ensures that the students can more clearly represent their ideas to themselves and how these match the evidence. This evidence then needs to be represented in a more complex way, in this case with the schema of compound variables. Their representations are then further reinforced with the follow up card game activity used in this lesson which again uses the two dimensional spatial schema as a scaffold for the compound variable idea. Then the bridging activities lead to the importance of the density idea and can be followed up in the next lesson. So metacognition is now seen as a set of processes of planning, monitoring and evaluating our learning and thinking.  We can then, together with our students, increase their capacity to represent the complex world and judge how good their claims are. The EEF report stresses that teachers should model metacognition. Let’s Think lesson structures allow for many opportunities to do this. References Adey, P. and Shayer, M. (2006). Really raising standards: Cognitive intervention and academic achievement. Routledge. Demetriou, A. and Spanoudis, G. (2018). Growing Minds. Routledge: London. Kuhn, D. (1999). A developmental model of critical thinking.  Educational Researcher, 28:16-25. White, R., & Gunstone, R. (1992). Probing Understanding. Great Britain: Falmer Press. [post_title] => When did metacognition become a thing? [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => when-did-metacognition-become-a-thing [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2019-04-04 13:51:16 [post_modified_gmt] => 2019-04-04 12:51:16 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://www.letsthink.org.uk/?p=1100 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) ) [post_count] => 10 [current_post] => -1 [in_the_loop] => [post] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 1265 [post_author] => 2223 [post_date] => 2020-11-17 15:03:42 [post_date_gmt] => 2020-11-17 15:03:42 [post_content] => The return of all children to school after lockdown was never going to be easy. As practitioners, we worried that our children would have fallen behind academically. However, how could we begin to ‘fill their learning gaps’ when they might not even feel safe in school anymore? The challenges we faced in September were not only that teaching had changed, from seating plans to the use of equipment, but also that our varying experiences of living through the pandemic had changed us too. With children having spent much less time talking face-to-face with peers, for some even talking to a partner post-lockdown was a challenge. In order to re-establish Let’s Think, I had to consider the more practical elements of tables and chairs as well as the children's emotional responses to group work. Despite this, Let’s Think has been pivotal in re-igniting communication skills and self-esteem. The children have begun supporting each other emotionally and academically again and talking has opened the door for more difficult conversations. For example, a discussion about the uniforms the soldiers wear in ‘The Conquerors’ led to a child revealing how strange he felt not wearing a mask in school. One child quickly reassured the others, explaining how we were 'a bubble' and that was 'like a family’. Following Let’s Think, I often use bridging to help the children to develop their ideas further. Bridging can make what they have thought about relevant by giving it a real application and it can activate and embed learning. Furthermore, effective and meaningful bridging can be approached through creative activities, such as drawing. Last year, I carried out research for my MA dissertation in which the children in my Year 4 class drew and wrote in response to the Aaron Becker Trilogy Let’s Think in English lessons. I wanted to explore whether you could increase confidence, motivation, engagement and enjoyment by turning the focus towards the creative and compositional elements of the writing process and whether an approach that sought to foster creativity, such as integrating drawing, may encourage ‘reluctant’ and underperforming writers. I concluded that it may be valuable for children to use both drawing and writing as a circular, interconnected process which can happen in either direction, insofar as the act of drawing may support writing but it can also create and refine ideas: Similar to Let’s Think, drawing is inclusive and using drawing in the writing process seemed to increase:

• Creativity and subsequently engagement 
• Enjoyment and motivation
• Confidence about themselves as writers.

    One possible reason for this may be that both Let’s Think and drawing encourage children to concentrate on the compositional aspects of writing. When we ask children to write, we require them to focus on ‘mechanics’, such as spelling and handwriting. If a child is pre-occupied with mechanics, especially if they find these elements difficult, a negative consequence may be that they perceive they are not a ‘good’ writer, as they do not value the capabilities they do possess, such as their ability to generate ideas. Therefore, using drawing as a tool feels particularly important at the moment, with some children returning to school with fragile self-esteem.   In the research, the drawings produced by the children seemed to fall into two categories: process drawing, whereby the steps taken to create the image are more important than the outcome, and product drawing, when the final picture is more significant than the practice of making it. Children use both process and product drawing for different reasons. Product drawing encourages a focus on details and could enhance self-esteem. Process drawings help the generation and organisation of ideas and allow these to be re-told and adapted.  Process drawing tends to be used by children more creatively, spontaneously and confidently than product drawing. It also supports more elements of the writing process.     To promote process drawing, it may help to understand the first four key factors outlined in this diagram (in pink): the use of a rubber, time taken, details added and effort involved. By decreasing these, the child would hopefully value the outcome less and adapt images more readily, thus shifting to using drawing as a process.     The diagram below summaries the main influences on writers’ self-perceptions that I observed and that the children identified. Central to the process are the child’s feelings of motivation, engagement, confidence and enjoyment, which could all affect reluctant writing behaviour and drawing self-esteem, or the child’s self-perceptions. As a writer, the child’s positive feelings may be enhanced when given choice and drawing could improve creativity, thus improving engagement. Autonomy can impact positively on the four key feelings. Furthermore, through working together, these feelings are also developed by peer approval and support. Now, more than ever, we need to look after our children’s mental health and encourage them to value the capabilities they possess. Let’s Think and drawing are both tools which both seek to enhance the feelings at the centre of this diagram. By using them in the classroom more often, we can hopefully provide our children with the positive learning experiences they need to support them as they negotiate our ‘new normal’. [post_title] => Using drawing to support bridging as part of Let’s Think [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => using-drawing-to-support-bridging-as-part-of-lets-think [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2020-11-21 12:10:55 [post_modified_gmt] => 2020-11-21 12:10:55 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://www.letsthink.org.uk/?p=1265 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [comment_count] => 0 [current_comment] => -1 [found_posts] => 53 [max_num_pages] => 6 [max_num_comment_pages] => 0 [is_single] => [is_preview] => [is_page] => [is_archive] => [is_date] => [is_year] => [is_month] => [is_day] => [is_time] => [is_author] => [is_category] => [is_tag] => [is_tax] => [is_search] => [is_feed] => [is_comment_feed] => [is_trackback] => [is_home] => 1 [is_404] => [is_embed] => [is_paged] => 1 [is_admin] => [is_attachment] => [is_singular] => [is_robots] => [is_posts_page] => 1 [is_post_type_archive] => [query_vars_hash:WP_Query:private] => 13cbbbca75583f5cee17e9a85a7f7a72 [query_vars_changed:WP_Query:private] => [thumbnails_cached] => [stopwords:WP_Query:private] => [compat_fields:WP_Query:private] => Array ( [0] => query_vars_hash [1] => query_vars_changed ) [compat_methods:WP_Query:private] => Array ( [0] => init_query_flags [1] => parse_tax_query ) )