OXBRIDGE
Support for Students
Year 11
November
Preliminary talk at SWGS for all Year 11
Students by someone from Oxford
Undergraduate Admissions Office
Year 12
November
All students with 6+ A* grades invited to
talk by Oxford Admissions Office
February
Oxbridge Briefing Evening with college
Admissions Tutor for parents and students
March
Visit to Oxbridge Conference
Year 12 (cont.)
June
Special PSD group for Oxbridge hopefuls
July
Visits to Oxford and Cambridge Open
Days
Individual interviews with all prospective
applicants
Year 13
September / October
• Weekly drop in help sessions at lunchtime
• One to ones re personal statements
• Practice interviews with “outsiders”
November
• Further interview with BWS/SWGS staff if wanted
• Interview workshop at SWGS with Oxford Admissions
person
Objectives
• To consider teaching
and learning strategies
for providing challenge
in the class room
• To share good ideas for
challenging our
students
Optimising learning
Out of 16 factors distinguishing expert
teaching, 3 accounted for 80% of findings:
1. Deep teaching and learning
2. Challenge
3. Monitoring and feedback
Hattie - 2003
Unpicking Challenge
1.
2.
3.
4.
T&L Activities
Questioning
How to make them think!
Sharing YOUR Good Ideas
Challenge for All
Activities which :
• are appropriate for all
• open up opportunities for the most able
• let the most able fly whilst supporting
the less able in developing at their own
pace.
‘Low threshold high ceiling’
Challenge and Skill
Csikszentmihalyi: FLOW
High Challenge
FLOW
ANXIETY
BOREDOM
Comfort zone
APATHY
Low Challenge
FLOW = High
challenge and
High skill
Beginning
End
Pit
uncertainty confusion
cognitive conflict
James Nottingham
Northern Wisdom
“If I ran a school, I’d give all the average grades
to the ones who gave me all the right answers,
for being good parrots. I’d give the top
grades to those who made lots of
mistakes and told me about them and
then told me what they had learned
from them.”
Buckminster Fuller, Inventor
Purposeful activity
Give the pupils something to do,
not something to learn;
and if the doing is of such a nature
as to demand thinking;
learning naturally results.
John Dewey
Bloom
• Evaluation
• Synthesis /
Creating
• Analysis
}
• Application
• Comprehension
• Knowledge
}
In unfamiliar situations these
are HOTS – deeper learning
In familiar situations these are
LOTS – surface learning
Activity
1. What is a corandic?
2. What does corandic grank from?
3. How do garkers excarp the tarances
from the corite?
4. What does the slorp finally frast?
5. What is coranda?
Answer?
• You don’t have to understand to answer
comprehension questions.
• No learning has to happen.
Teaching is the art of asking
questions.
Socrates
‘In the middle of difficulty lies
opportunity. The important thing is not
to stop questioning.’
Albert Einstein
It’s a fact that…
§ An average teacher asks 400 questions in
a day
§ That’s 70,000 a year!
§ One-third of all teaching time is spent
asking questions
§ Most questions are answered in less than
a second
Steven Hastings
TES 4 July 2003
Bloom’s
taxonomy
§ Knowledge – describe,
identify, who, when, where
§ Comprehension – translate,
predict, why
§ Application – demonstrate
how, solve, try it in a new
context
§ Analysis – explain, infer,
analysis
§ Synthesis – design, create,
compose
§ Evaluation – assess,
compare/contrast, judge
Dalton’s question stems
§
How long did he wait on the ledge?
What is the longest time someone
could wait in these circumstances?
§
Assume Joe falls in this scene. What
will the reaction of the film crew
be?
§
Quantity questions
§
Change questions
§
Prediction questions
§
Points of view questions
§
Highlight the clues that show you
how the story might end.
§
Personal involvement questions
§
Why is Joe not enjoying his return
to Peru?
§
Comparative association
questions
§
§
Valuing questions
How would you cope with re-enacting
a moment in your life for a film
crew?
§
Compare Joe’s expedition with one
over a hundred years ago
§
What impact would re-visiting the
place where he nearly lost his life
have on Joe?
Thinking Skills
Thinking Skills Activities
• Socratic Talk – group
observation of a
discussion
• Mysteries
• Opinion Lines
• Concept cartoons
• Odd one out
• ‘Fattening up’
questions
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Diamond ranking
Graphic organisers
Mapping
Fortune lines
Concept map
Venn diagrams
Sorting and
classifying
• Inference grids
HOTS not MOTS
Higher Order Thinking Skills
Not
More Of The Same
•
•
•
•
•
AVOID!
Repetitive extension work
Time filling activities
Additional writing
Helping others when task completed
Starting points that provide no challenge
Deborah Eyre – ‘Able Children’ (1997)
10 Good Ideas…
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Role play / simulation
Problem solving and enquiry tasks
Choice
Decision making
Time restricted activities
Developing meta-cognition
Philosophy – helps critical thinking
Using a range of inputs – develops
evaluative skills
9. No correct answer – speculative
10. Recording in an unusual way
Renzulli’s Mighty Ducks!
• ‘Authentic Learning’ – Content and processes
learned in an authentic, contextual situation
– Meaningful use of information and problem solving
• “Mighty Duck Savers Scheme” – designed tshirts, stamps, brochures informing the public
of the dangers of feeding the ducks,
strategies to Town Hall
– Mayor proclaimed “Official Might Duck Savers
Day”
‘Stretch and Challenge in new
A2 assessments
• Variety of skills: analyse, evaluate,
discuss, compare
• Open-ended questions
• Case studies
2004 Oxford Brookes / NACE /
Newstead Wood Girls Grammar
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Open-ended
Differing lengths
Varied – not repeating already-acquired skills
‘Something we can’t do’
Are related to real life
Do not have too tightly determined outcomes
Build on previous learning
‘Stretch the imagination’
Group work with debates, role-play and hot seating, making different
types of presentation
Offer leadership opportunities
Require more research and in-depth understanding
Offer greater freedom of choice
High expectations of teachers
Student involvement in class
G&T Speed Dating
The Rules…
• You have 4 minutes to swap / explain your
GOOD IDEA.
• When the whistle blows the person on the
inside STAYS THERE, the outside person
moves CLOCKWISE to the next seat.
Five ingredients that contribute
to challenging learning
1. Lesson starts: low threshold, high ceiling activities
2. Creative climate and conjecturing atmosphere
3. Purposeful activity and discussion
4. Valuing expert thinking and behaviour
5. Developing expert learners
A group focussed on raising challenge in the
classroom
Meeting once per mini-term
Providing:
• A forum for sharing good practice
• Mutual support in the implementation of new ideas
through joint planning and peer observation
• A platform for facilitating cross-curricular projects
‘For what is the best choice for
each individual is the highest it is
possible for him to achieve’
Aristotle
Open to everybody!
The wider the range of subjects and
experience, the better
• New ideas to put into practice in your classroom
• Support from colleagues in experimental teaching
• A chance to work with different people
• An opportunity to challenge your thinking about
learning
• An opportunity to discuss learning with the students
• Could lead to action research and accreditation
First meeting
Monday 9th November
Lunchtime
Seminar Room