Quotes Quilt
A quotes quilt is an easy way of engaging staff with theory, research and evidence as well as other more provocative quotes. We always find that they
serve as a positive starter for a meeting as it encourages everyone, even the quietest staff member, to speak about the topic at hand. In addition,
they can help a facilitator gauge group member’s views and beliefs about this aspect of learning and teaching.
What to do
You can use this resource in whatever way you like but we usually:
1. Give individual copies to staff as the font size is rather small!
2. Advise them that as they read they should pick out one quote that really stands out for them. This could be because they agree or disagree,
like or dislike or simply because it resonates.
3. Give them approximately 5 minutes to read through the content.
4. Invite someone to start. Ask them to say which one they chose and why. Next, ask if others have chosen the same one. If so, what were their
reasons? Then invite others to explain their reasons for the one they chose.
5. We usually find it helpful to ‘play back’ some of the themes that seems to be emerging and ask group members if they recognise them and if
they notice anything different.
Use this resource in conjunction with…
Next you might like to give staff Professor Desforges’ think piece to read over a cup of coffee (instead of serving refreshments at the beginning).
Alternatively you might like to use the ideas from the two presentations we have provided you with to facilitate your introductory session on
challenge and differentiation.
Challenge and Differentiation – Quotes Quilt
Major drivers of attainment
1.
2.
3.
4.
pupils’ cognitive and metacognitive
activity
flow of challenging work
time on task
home support
(Wang, M C, Haertel, G D & Walberg, H J,
1993, Towards a knowledge base for
school learning, Review of Educational
Research, 63, No. 3, 249-294)
“The teacher, the student, the content –
if you change one, you have to change
them all.”
(Professor Richard Elmore, Harvard Graduate
School of Education)
‘Differentiation' is the process by which
differences between pupils are
accommodated so that all students have
the best possible chance of learning.’
(Training and Development Agency)
If I had to reduce all of educational
psychology to just one principle I
would say this: the most important
single factor influencing learning is
what the learner already knows.
Ascertain this and teach him
accordingly.
(Ausubel, 1968)
“Bruner explained that the intellectual development of the child is not a
clockwork sequence of events – it responds to influences from the
environment. So, teaching does not have to follow the course of cognitive
development, but can lead it by providing challenging, usable opportunities
for the child to forge ahead in development - tempting the child into more
powerful modes of thinking. Bruner was suggesting that learning should start
from where the learner is already. His idea was to first match the problem to
the learner's capacities or find some aspect of the problem that could be
matched. Then, instruction should move the learner on from his/her current
developmental level.”
(Jerome Bruner’s Constructivist Model and the Spiral Curriculum, Research
for Teachers http://www.gtce.org.uk/tla/rft/bruner0506/)
Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy
answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.
(Martin Luther King, Jr)
The study found “more than half the observed tasks
were mismatched. The nature of the mismatch was
related to children’s level of attainment relative to his
classmates. High attainers were underestimated and low
attainers overestimated...Mismatching appeared to have
important immediate consequences in terms of lost
opportunities and limiting experiences for high attainers
and confusion for low attainers.” (Prof C. Desforges)
It is well established in cognitive science that learners
always know something about the issue at hand and
what they know is always their starting point for
making sense.” (About Learning Demos p12).
“Know thyself”
(Socrates)
‘No two children are alike. No two children learn in the identical way. An enriched environment for one student is not necessarily
enriched for another. In the classroom we should teach children to think for themselves’
Marian Diamonds (Professor of Neuroanatomy at Berkley)
“High achievers are not necessarily good real-life learners...Resilience in the face of difficulty is one of the most basic ingredients of
learning power. Yet apparently you can be successful in school without it. Carol Dweck of Columbia University gave a maths test to
a mixed-ability group of 14-year-old girls. In the middle of the test booklet, for some girls, had been stapled, as if by accident, a
page of problems that none of them knew how to do. On the (perfectly do-able) problems after the impossible ones, many of the
high-achieving girls did very poorly. As a result of being temporarily flummoxed, they had gone to pieces. These successful
students were woefully lacking in resilience, and so could not really be classed as good overall learners.”
(Building Learning Power, Guy Claxton)
“If a doctor, lawyer, or
dentist had 40 people in
his office at one time, all
of whom had different
needs, and some of whom
didn’t want to be there
and were causing trouble,
and the doctor, lawyer, or
dentist, without
assistance, had to treat
them all with professional
excellence for nine
months, then he might
have some conception of
the classroom teacher’s
job.”
(Donald D Quinn)