As teachers, we think a lot about teaching and learning, spend hours developing resources and hone our classroom practice so that students can get the most out of the hours they spend with us. However, rarely do we give any thought or attention to our own development and learning. This, I am realising more and more, is a serious problem. Firstly, it means that for a good many staff there are limited opportunities for them to improve and grow. But the biggest issue is that a lack of self-development damages students: those who do not learn themselves are going to find it more difficult to effectively model the process of learning with their students.

So, how to we solve this problem and get teachers learning? At Copleston High School we have just embarked on a process that will turn all our classroom staff (teachers, CTAs and Cover Supervisors) into action researchers. We took the following approach:

STAGE 1. AND OUR SURVEY SAID…
Our first action was to start a dialogue with staff and take their ideas about teaching and learning seriously. Therefore, we set up an area on our FROG VLE where staff could suggest what the school should focus on and then vote on which were the best proposals.

STAGE2. REVAMP LEARNING & TEACHING GROUP
We have a termly Learning & Teaching Group Meeting to which each department sends a Rep. Up until 15 months ago, its role was to discuss items that appeared on an agenda, which was rarely populated by anyone else other than senior leaders. We took the decision in October 2010 to offer them an alternative: carry on as we had been, or use the time to form action research groups. The vast majority opted for the latter and so we took the top five priorities from the staff survey and turned them action research titles. Members of the Teaching & Learning Group then divided themselves up according to interest and started researching.

I wanted to create a buzz about action research, get people innovating so that others might follow (see Geoffrey Moore, 1991). I love the way Seth Godin talks about this in his TED talk:

STAGE 3. RE-BRAND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
We now had five action research groups with interesting findings that they could share. After an insightful trip to Cramlington Learning Village and talking to staff there we adapted their idea of holding an internal conference. We started organising conference packs, speakers, food, etc so that it had the feel of a real conference, but it would be for our staff about our development. We felt this step was important, because it would signal a new direction and new expectations from staff. We called our conference Copleston Sauce: Open, taste and Love Learning (a title created by 7LM – my Year 7 ICT group – they even designed the logo).

STAGE 4. SELL THE IDEA OF ACTION RESEARCH
On the first day of the conference (Tuesday 3rd January 2012) we split the whole teaching body into groups of five and asked them to sit together at round tables in the main hall. This was not a shock, we published lists and an explanation before the event and held two briefings in December. We started by talking about the reason why the school exists: to serve the community in which it sits. We then explored, how we can exemplify the idea of community in our practice. We talked about teachers forming communities in order to learn so that they could mirror and demonstrate amongst themselves what they expected of students in the classroom. We talked through the idea that the school community needs to have an andragogical and pedagogical strand in order to grow (see David Price’s blog on the Learning Futures Project). This, we explained, was why we wanted them to form small learner communities and conduct some action research.

STAGE 5. HERE’S ONE I MADE EARLIER
Next, we got each member of the new learner communities to go to one of five workshops based around the research topics conducted by the members of the Learning & Teaching Group. This enabled us to model the process with staff and plant some seeds in their minds.

STAGE 6. START PLANNING
With the help of a protocol we designed specifically for the occasion, we got the learner communities to start talking amongst themselves and deciding what would be the focus of their action research. It was a risk constructing the groups and not allowing total freedom of choice, but the principle of learning from others and mixing up staff with different roles and skills was an interesting experiment – it will be interesting to see the results of the evaluation when it comes back. At this stage we felt it was important to drive home the community angle and to make staff even more aware of the potential within the school.

The initial response was incredible. The questions being posed were fantastic and the level of engagement from staff was amazing – the conference ended at 4:00 pm on Wednesday 4th January 2012, and 20 minutes later there were still staff in the hall discussing their action research. The sharing has continued on twitter with people suggesting resources and links and it was happening across departments and between staff and CTAs. We feel that the freedom for each learner community to determine its own title was important in building ownership of the process. It has created a genuine enthusiasm for action research and a platform on which we can build a school community that truly has learning at its heart. What we have done is in no way unique and borrows heavily from work already carried out by Learning Futures Project, High Tech High in California, Cramlington and the work of Dylan Wiliam. However, it is a big step forward for us and we believe is moving us into a completely new space in terms of development

The challenges we now face are helping staff to realise their plans in the coming weeks and to establish a model for making action research a key component of the Professional Development programme year after year. We really want the conference to happen again next year and for the most part to be run by the Learner Communities. What the conference this year has shown us is that teachers really do need each other to develop and to enable them to thoroughly practice what they preach.

‘Critique in most classroom settings has a singular audience and a limited impact: whether from a teacher or peer, it is for the edification of the author; the goal is to improve that particular piece. The formal critique in my classroom has a broader goal. I use whole-class critique sessions as a primary context for sharing knowledge and skills with the group’ (Ron Berger, An Ethic of Excellence)

When I first read Ron Berger’s work on critique I was blown away: he was able to get students giving detailed and almost professional feedback to others so that work was substantially improved as a result. To me, this seemed like an ideal that was practically out of reach. Like the vast majority of teachers I have used AfL strategies that ask students to comment on the effectiveness of work and, I suspect, for most of us the results were disappointing. Comments were too general and therefore difficult to act upon. Even with modelling and practice, the quality was still a way off where I wanted it to be. Take a look at these videos by the man himself explaining its purpose and power:

Critiquing has changed my attitudes and transformed the quality of work in my classroom. Of course, there are other factors that have helped with this (for example, project based learning, SOLO taxonomy and Big Questions), but critiquing deserves the spotlight as a strategy that can have a profound impact on learning. It is high risk and takes time to master, but I have been so impressed with the results. Asking students to put their work up for public scrutiny is a bold move, asking them to listen patiently as others coolly dissect their work is difficult for some. It is difficult for teachers too, relying on a whole class to come to with quality comments with just a few prompts from you. However, it does work if approached in the right manner.

So, here are my ‘Top Five Tips’ for successful critiquing:

1. Establish the right culture
You need to get across the message early on that a piece of work is not an end in itself, but a stage in a longer process. Quality takes time and students need to get away from a checklist driven mentality and move to one of continual improvement. This will probably be a struggle at first, as students used to the former. Also, you have to ween them off their grade/level dependency (it only makes their checklist addiction stronger). I agree with Berger when he tells students there are only two grades in his class: ‘A’ and not done.

I have launched this concept in two ways. Firstly, I have quotes on my windows that read:

“What could you possibly achieve of quality in a single draft?”
“Would you ever put on a play without rehearsals?”
“Would you ever play a gig without practicing first?”

The purpose of these quotes (straight from Berger) was to establish, in terms relevant to them, why drafting is needed. I then moved into the more abstract and asked students to consider an article from the Big Issue about what made Usain Bolt great (Issue #966). From this they pulled out their favourite quotes (see image above) and we made a display. I did this same activity with all groups from Year 7 to Year 13 so that the message was absolutely clear.

2. Go Over the Rules… Every Single Time
From the Work at High Tech High, via Darren Mead, I got the following rules:

- Hard on content, soft on people
- Step up, step back
- Be kind, helpful and specific
(Click on the rules for Darren Mead’s excellent dissection of how they work).

These have been crucial in making critique work. By making the whole AfL experience public, it is easier to spot weaker comments and ask students to clarify or provide specific examples. Also, the idea that everyone should be involved has been crucial. In most instances, the process has been contagious and students have responded well. The last rule sums up everything else and gets to the heart of why the process is so powerful. Practice has shown me though that rules need to be established before every critique. Year 9 will soon be doing their fourth of the year and I will go over the rules carefully; it reinforces the expectations and shows them that it is a serious business.

3. Aim for perfection and insist on quality
The first few times that I used critique I treated it too lightly. I wanted to establish the concept of it with students and so allowed them to get away with comments that were not that in depth. This was completely wrong. Critique works best when it works towards quality. It has to be the goal of every session, even if it seems hard or harsh. You might need several sessions of critique to get the desired product, but it should always be there as your aim. This is why I gave Year 13 an article aimed at Cambridge students, written by a leading academic, as an example of what I was looking for. That is the level I want them to reach and their critique of each others work was centred around making this a reality.

4. Critique a Variety of Media
With some groups I made the mistake of critiquing two pieces of written work with them early on. In their minds the process became synonymous with that media, rather than as Berger says ‘a habit that suffuses the classroom.’ Therefore, I have tried to ensure that we look at least two different media early on so that they understand that the process of critique is about attitude and not just about writing. Below are the first two drafts of an Audioboo completed by a mixed ability Year 9 group in order to answer to the question ‘Why did Wilf go to war?’:

After the first recording we critiqued the work and the students talked about the need to offer specific information to back up points and they also wanted to have better explanations. There was a lot of discussion about what specific information was relevant. The second draft is below:

There are two obvious differences between the two drafts. The first is length; the second attempt is almost two minutes longer and therefore includes much more detail. However, the most impressive thing is the amount of students who joined in the second time around. Many more wanted to add some details or an explanation and it became (almost) a whole class piece. Next lesson we will go back to this and critique again to make further improvements.
Audioboo and critique of exhibition pieces have stopped critique from becoming stale and allowed my groups to grasp its true purpose: helping them to achieve quality.

5. Only critique work when it is ready
At first, I tried to critique a whole class at the same time. It was hard to keep the pace going and also it was too long. This approach worked fine for sixth form where numbers were smaller and patience longer; in fact, when Year 13 critiqued their opening paragraph to an essay it was incredibly beneficial as we could identify several key features of a good answer and share excellent examples of knowledge to back up points. Looking back though, the reason it was so successful is that everyone had a paragraph that they were ready to share. Critiques where lots of students need to share work often fail because of variation in the amount of work they have achieved. Therefore, I have been working hard to find ways to minimise this.

Lower down the school I have tried several things to ensure that critiquing is more fluid and focused. With Year 9 I trialled critiquing someone’s work at the end of each lesson. This has created a really healthy attitude among the group, although we quickly extended it to cover two people (less scary and more opportunity to develop key principles of what we are studying). With Year 8 I have critiqued segments of a whole: We ask different people to present one part of the work and then stitch the bits together to make a whole. Then, we can critique the whole product. This gives us a range of opinions and answers, but also allows us to focus on the principles of an effective piece (the Audioboo recordings above are a good example of this).

Sometimes you need to see all the work. Post-its are great for allowing everyone to contribute, but it still needs for you to bring back the discussion to a central place and establish the key features. After a Post-it activity, questions like ‘What features did you see a lot?’ and ‘What advice were you writing often?’ are good to get the discussion going.

To recap, if you want a whole class to successfully critique the work of other students it is a good idea to…
1. Establish the right culture
2. Go over the rules… every single time
3. Aim for perfection and insist on quality
4. Critique a variety of media
5. Only critique work when it is ready

If you need further proof, I used critique in a lesson observed by an HMI. I said six words in the 30 minutes they were there: “Get yourself ready for a gallery critique.” They were very impressed.

I have been on the road again this week delivering training in a number of schools. I really enjoy the experience and always learn from the people I work with and it is tremendous fun. However, as a trainer I know that sessions packed full of practical strategies will go down really well and this is beginning to trouble me. I worry that theory and context are almost vilified in the profession and we can no longer see past the quick fix of a good practical tip.

Before going on I would like to say that I exclude the users of twitter from this description – they are keeping the art of theory alive (take a look at #edjournal for proof). They are, however, a minority and only in the most enlightened schools are they central to decision making.

This trend is worrying for three reasons:

1. Teachers, in general, are not interested in theory. The sessions where there is a substantial theory base will always get a weaker reception. Teachers want ‘stuff’ they can take away and use tomorrow. While I always show how the theory works in practice, it never seems to have the same impact as CPD with titles like ’10 engaging starters’ or ’7 great discussion tools’. While there is a place for practical tips, but I know that this approach offers little impact. A good idea might be used once or twice, but understanding how it works and why it works will bring lasting and sustainable alterations to teaching methods. The ‘quick fix’ is just that and somewhere down the line a proper solution needs to be found. I see too many Senior Leaders promoting ‘Sharing Good Practice’ sessions as the way to improve teaching and learning in their schools. While it will allow for a dialogue to be a created about learning it needs to be followed up with a ‘Sharing Good Theory’ session where staff explain the philosophy behind the techniques that they use and why it leads to better learning.

2. If we can’t see the relevance of theory then how do we move forward? If only a small minority are reading about new approaches and trying them out, experimenting and refining, how can the profession raise itself up to better standards? Few people have heard of or seen Sir Ken Robinson, hardly anyone has read Geoff Petty or John Hattie, let alone slightly leftfield texts like those by Steven Johnson or Daniel Pink. I am concerned that standards will not improve in the majority of schools, because no one is looking into what is possible and exciting.

3. I think the attitude of the profession at large towards CPD and theory plays into the hands of our critics. Some politicians and large chunks of the population see teachers as lazy and stuck in their ways. They view teaching as being a simple set of skills, that as Michael Gove put it can be passed on from the master ‘to the apprentice’. I firmly believe that teaching is a highly creative discipline, providing tremendous scope and freedom to experiment. But it also consists of patterns and lines that can be follewed to create a more firm understanding of the students in front of you. Without theory to map a route we are either aimless or rigid, and neither is good enough in education. I find it hard to imagine a doctor being negative about new approaches in their specialism, or lawyers refusing to read the lasted case law. Why should teachers resent good CPD and theory?

I have talked to many teachers about this and most feel under pressure to perform well with exam groups and to meet expectations. They get observed occasionally, pull out a few tricks and set pieces, and then get back on the treadmill of reports, emails, marking and planning. They feel like they do not have the time to read theory and experiment, it intrudes on their daily business of survival. Also, the quality is not always there in CPD sessions and people get turned off. It is hard not to feel sympathy for this argument, but we need to break it down and move the agenda on. Leaders need to take bold decisions and teachers need to talk about theory, share it, just like we do on twitter, and help to breathe new life into our unthinking profession.

I have recently bought a PS3 for my classroom and, yes, it did raise a few eyebrows at first. In fact, several weeks on and it still seems to create the same reaction in some people. However, it was the response of the students that most interested me. The first game that I experimented with was Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution.

I had wanted to use it for a while to help teach the Tudors unit at AS Level. One of the key teaching points of the unit is how Monarchs governed their states and I was fairly sure that it could help students get a feel for the mindset of the Early Modern Period.

The results were fascinating and made a real impact. However, I don’t want to go into the whole defence of game based learning, or even explain how it can be used to create a real enquiry (that has been done with much greater eloquence than I could muster by the likes of Dawn Hallybone). All I want to set out here is five simple reasons why we should be using games to teach through at post-16:

1. It is great for teaching concepts – so far we have used it to launch the Tudor unit in Year 12 (looking at the concept of kingship), the Crime and Punishment unit at Year 13 (using the CSI game to look at the concept of investigation) and with Year 7 to look at Chronology (using the History extension pack of Little Big Planet). The initial playing generated a lot of excitement, but the discussion that followed was the really amazing part. Students were able to provide concrete (allbeit digitally rendered) examples to back up and explain abstract concepts. It was brilliant to hear three Year 12 students discussing why it was virtually impossible to create a state noted for culture while engaged in a protracted war, or why it was futile to build a banking system when most spare cash was being spent on an invasion army. The game had managed to solidify thinking on a difficult concept in less than two hours – it would have taken weeks for me to feed them enough contextual knowledge to reach the same point. This approach is one that I want to hang on to. I can not see me using the PS3 as a straight tool for learning about a particular time period or skill – that seems to take out the excitement and the thinking. It was the connections that had to be made and the abstract nature of the thinking that made this work.

2. It doubles up as a blu-ray – the advantages of blu-ray are documented widely, but having that technology available in the room is superb. Buying a separate player would cost just as much and the PS3 has more to offer the class. It means that we can show clips that create much more atmosphere. For example, when looking at the changing landscape of crime drama we show two clips from Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’. Seeing this in high definition is fantastic, but it also shows the students that you care about the presentation of the sources of information you use. Carrying the box with reverance and carefully placing it in the player adds to the drama and makes them care more about the content. Honestly, design and presentation matter an awful lot in post-16 teaching.

3. If you have wifi, it is a cheap way to get internet access – the fact that it is almost a pc at a fraction of the cost is superb. For less than £200 you can get access to a host of web resources and use them in lessons. If you want a cheap way to play video clips or show striking images, then the PS3 has got to be a serious consideration. It is another access point to help students look up and clarify those small issues that arise when they are involved with completing an enquiry. The novelty of doing this additional research on the PS3 has proven engaging too.

4. It creates a buzz among students – the amount of comments I have received since the PS3 landed at school is incredible. The students think it is brilliant that the History department has one and the teachers actually know how to play the games. One student (Year 12) wrote on the VLE ‘History + PS3 = Cool’. I have to agree.

5. It is a technology that is constantly evolving – with the recent introduction was motion and visualising technology the PS3 has opened up a new avenue of use for the classroom. I don’t know how well it will work for what we need to teach, but it will be fun to explore this with the students. And the best part is that new games and hardware to connect to the PS3 will emerge every year so that we can keep offering a variety of approaches and remain fresh. We should not abandon the principles of play and exploration at KS3 – keeping the learning active, engaging and different is as vital at post-16 as it is with Year 6 or 7 and using a games console is just one way to bring this into the classroom.

These five points are not an advert for PS3 consoles, although I obviously do like mine, more an attempt explore games based learning and student engagement at KS5.

Hope it helps.

Beginning tomorrow morning every single one of us is going to sell Ideas! …What we are not clear about is just how to get ideas. So I said maybe you could tell us. – James Web Young (2003)

So, how do I get ideas?

In James Webb Young’s brilliant book, A Technique for Producing Ideas, he argues that coming up with an idea is actually a rather straight-forward process. In fact, the reason why ideas differ so enormously is because it is simply a new combination of old elements and the way we view relationships between them. So, in Young’s view, some will see each piece of fact as a separate bit of knowledge whilst others will see a link in a chain of knowledge with relationships and similarities. For the latter, facts are more like an illustration of a general law applying to a whole series of facts. Therefore, for someone who is quick at spotting patterns and relationships several ideas will be produced. When relationships are seen they in turn lead to the extraction of a more general principle which, when understood, suggests the way to a new combination – the new idea. This process can of course be cultivated as Young states:

The production of ideas is as definite a process as the production of Fords; that the production of ideas, too, runs on an assembly line; that in this production the mind follows an operative technique which can be learned and controlled; and that its effective use is just as much a matter of practice in the technique as is the effective use of any tool

5 Steps to Creative Ideas (influences from Young)

Step 1. Gather Material

As with all professions without understanding the key facts you have nothing. If you sit and wait for a revolutionary idea to strike you, think again! Johannes has worked as mentor and Associate Tutor for many years and have helped new teachers who sometimes would start planning their lessons without having done any research into the topic. His advice was always to ensure that subject knowledge was sound before planning begins. Teaching a lesson without understanding the subject content is impossible. Lack of understanding leads to poor teaching (see Musings on Creativity in Teaching Part 1: Knowing Your Knowledge). That said, outstanding teachers not only have specific knowledge of their topic but also a general understanding of their subject which enable them to understand the ‘bigger picture’. We also suggest a third element, namely to have a wider perspective in other subject areas. Outstanding teachers gather anecdotes, information and stories from a range of areas for example architecture, music, business, nature and film etc.  The latter is essential in the creation of ideas. It is the new combination of specific knowledge about a topic coupled with a general understanding and wider perspective about the subject and other areas that will make ideas occur. The task of gathering material is a life-long one , be it an interesting quote, enigmatic photo or recent news story, find ways of cataloguing/storing these snippets of data.

Step 2. Oblique Strategies

This part is less concrete  as it involves thinking more abstractly about the facts you have, looking at each one individually, bringing two facts together to see if they fit, as well as beginning to synthesize and spot relationships. For this process to work you should try not to think too directly at each element but do what Young refers to as ‘listening’ for their meaning without ‘looking’ for it (Young 2003, p30). What tends to happen here is that you will get initial, sometimes rather odd, ideas but don’t disregard these as they will help to shape your future ideas. Whilst engaged in this process you’ll also feel like you’ve ran into a wall, but don’t give up just yet. It’s the same feeling you have when you’re engaging in a long brainstorming-session with a team and it feels like you’re getting nowhere – but you are! It is crucial to continue just a little bit longer before stopping, not giving up, but stopping as you have exhausted you mind for the time being. Cue: Step 3.

Step 3. No Efforts – Stop Thinking

This is the time for your unconscious mind to do some work. Like you say to your students, remember not too cram everything the night before… Well, the reason you say that is also because the mind needs to rest to synthesize the information properly – to take it all in. However, sleeping will not be the only solution to your ideas. The best way of letting your mind rest whilst topping up the creative juices is to undertake another creative, yet relaxing, activity for example go for a nice run or long walk, watch a decent film, listen to music and so on. You are not only giving your mind time to reflect but also providing additional material which has nothing to do with the topic at hand but will serve to keep your mind working without you having to think about it.

Step 4. It Just Came to Me

Just like that, the idea popped into your head when you least expected it, in the middle of the night, early in the morning or sometimes annoyingly when you’re driving or in a situation where frantically writing down things may not be regarded as something positive. So, when you stop pushing for ideas and gone through a period of rest, they’ll show up.

Step 5. The Bleak Reality

When you take out your new idea to the harsh reality you might realise that it’s not as wonderful as you once thought. This is the hardest part; moulding your idea into the structures and conditions so it can work. It is during this period when most people give up and put their idea in the half-baked drawer together with hundreds of its counterparts. Solution: don’t protect your new idea, throw it to the Devil Advocates! You will then see that your idea carry self-generating qualities as it stimulate those who examine it and consequently will help develop into the final masterpiece.

If you find the topic about ideas interesting you might want to get your hands on a copy of these books, they have stimulated us to write some of the posts on Eat.Sleep.Teach.

Ten Faces of Innovation by Tom Kelley

Making Ideas Happen – Scott Belsky

The Back of the Napkin – Dan Roam

The Art Of Innovation – Tom Kelley

Related Posts:

• Don’t allow Devil’s Advocates.
• Simplicity at its best
• Educational Mashups Part four: creativity boosts from the wise
• Musings on Creativity in Teaching (Part 1: Knowing Your Knowledge)

Sometimes we think to much about being creative and come up with all manner of elaborate schemes to engage and excite students. Sometimes it might be better to take a step back, look at the basics and change just one thing…

In the last week of term we decided to do some lessons outside. In fact, we did a day outside, complete with lunch cooked by the students on fires that they constructed themselves.

There was a lot of smoke and, more importantly, a lot of laughter. The day was a great success and this was down to three things:
1. Change of scenery
2. New element or angle to the work
3. Different students coming forward to contribute

The change of scenery started out as a way to help students gel and mix with a wider group. However, it actually energised their thinking. The task was a mystery, but instead of clues on paper they were spread around an orienteering course. This meant that students had to locate the clues before starting to piece them together. The route they chose affected the clues they reached and therefore their answers. This made the debrief fascinating, especially since unexpected students were coming forward to voice their opinions. The ‘outdoors’ element completely threw some students who are usually good at this type of thing, whereas a few ‘quiet’ individuals were vocal about the way they had tackled the orienteering part. The whole exercise reinforced the notion of variety being vital in learning. The change of senery meant skills not normally seen in the classrooom were needed and the students loved the chance to demonstrate them. One young man is autistic and finds it hard to cope with the lively nature of life at school. He can be thrown by last minute changes to his day, but here (due to his scouting background) he was confident and a real leader.

We will definitely be doing this again and coming up with new scenarios to challenge students.

Related Posts:

• Teaching: The Unthinking Profession
• Ideas for Encouraging Collaboration and Creativity Part I: how to collaborate virtually
• 5 Steps to Creative Ideas
• Creativity in Teaching (Part 3: start designing lessons)

For this year’s summer school at Copleston High School we investigated how Ipswich can be made appealing to the people of Bruges in Belgium. It is a real and significant problem (to us, at least), since the two towns have forged new links and have started to work more closely together in the last year. The Year 6 (soon to be Year 7) students attending the Summer School needed to decide what can be said about Ipswich and how it could be presented to their continental counterparts.

Below is a diary of the activities we used to build up the enquiry and student responses to them.

DAY ONE – Breaking the Ice
On arrival students were asked to play the ’11′ game. Everyone forms a circle and the first person starts counting, they can add 1, 2 or 3 numbers to the total. The person who has to say the number 11 is out and the counting starts again. This activity is a fun way to engage the brain and get people communicating in a small way.

Next, we carried out a litttle trust experiment, inspired by the work of Dan Ariely in The Upside of Irrationality. The group were split into two teams and each were given a bag of sweets (enough for one each). The first team had to decide whether to keep the sweets or hand them over to the other team for a chance of getting back many more than they started with. If they handed them over, the second team would receive four bags of sweets – making a total of five when added to the one they were already holding. The second team now had to decide whether to keep all five bags or split the bounty with the other team.

The results were fascinating. The first team debated for a while, but based on the fact that ‘we don’t know them and we don’t know that they will share’ they rejected the offer and kept the bag for themselves. The second group had decided to split the pot if they were given the option. Their rationale was that if the first team showed trust in them, they felt oblicated to reward them. The first team then felt bad and as we debriefed the activity the idea of trust came out really strongly as a key element in making any group enquiry work.

The final part of the morning session was used for getting to know people’s names (using ryhmes, e.g. ‘My name is Neal and I love a good meal,’ and a ball for random selection).

In the afternoon session we experienced archery. The activity was new to all students and a real challenge. The debrief centred arounnd a discussion of developing existing skills and learning new ones.

DAY TWO – What do you know already?
In the first session students were grouped to include a range of creative talents and then given the problem: How can you market Ipswich in Bruges? They had to think carefully about what they knew already and think about what questions they wanted to ask. We did this by doing a real brainstorm session and using David Leat’s 8Q approach (5Ws plus How, Could and Should). We also created a grafitti wall of our favourite questions where answers could be shared throughout the project. In the debrief students said that they now needed to find answers and suggested a visit to the town centre. Anticipating this, we made made a few bookings for Day 3.

The afternoon session was football coaching, where the students took a familiar skill and developed it in new ways.

DAY THREE – Summer Schooll On Tour
The whole day was spent out in Ipswich. We had pre-booked three guides: one at the docks, one at Ipswich Football Stadium and one at a local Mansion House. The idea was for students to get their questions answered, generate one ones and start to think about how to sell Ipswich. The whole day was fascinating and students were really starting to think about their knowledge because they were the ones in control of the questions. We also gave each group a digital camera and a journal so that they could record the day and take ‘publicity shots.’

The debrief took the form of a group Mind map and showed us that they had taken on board a lot throughout the and were now keen to get on with the project. So, we adapted our plans for Day Four and allowed the students freedom to create.

DAY FOUR – Any Ideas?
The fourth day was about students starting to develop their thoughts and coming up with the final product. They developed a range of responses, including live websites, powerpoints, models and branding – all through group interaction and problem solving techniques that they employed on their own. It was at this point that they ‘took over’ and started to call the shots about how to spend their time. Our role was to fascilitate and sort any logistical issues.

At the end of the day, the debreif centred around what skills they needed or wanted to develop. The students identified six key areas:
- How do we create good publicity?
- What language/words most persuade people to do something?
- How do we create good powerpoints and websites?
- What makes a good brand?
- How do you make a good speech?
- What does Ipswich stand for?

The staff then sat down and planned a session based around each of these questions for the next day…

DAY FIVE – Get Skilled
In the first session students had to allocate members of their group to attend the sessions listed above. There was a free choice as long as someone from each group attended each session. Three were run in the next hour and then another three after a break. The students then got together and swapped experiences and skills. The afternoon session was spent applying these new skills to their projects.

One of the issues that came up in the debrief was that they did not really know Bruges and so could not make a judgement about whether the points they had highlighted about Ipswich would appeal; as one girl put it, ‘We are saying that Ipswich has 12 medieval churches in use, but what if Bruges has 15… that won’t make them come here, it just makes them look better!’ It was a good point and we had anticipated this and organised a trip to Bruges.

DAY SIX – Are we ready to go?
The day was spent putting together a set of proposals and materials to test against the backdrop of Bruges. Students had two scenarios to work with ‘unique’ and ‘complimentary.’ The idea was to decide if they would sell Ipswich by stressing its unique features or whether more could be done with the links between the two places. Both theories would need testing against Bruges. They would need to test the strengths of any claim. By the end of the end students were filling their journals with points they wanted to clarify.

DAY SEVEN – The Big Road Trip
This was a long day, but worth the effort. Students were given a set of graphic organisers to fill in as well as collect information to support their approach to promoting Ipswich. The organisers were designed to capture a range of information and cover many skills – each member of the group had a different one to fill in and we left it up to the group to decide who did what. We had around five hours in Bruges, following set tours and recording information.

DAY EIGHT – More Information, More Problems

This day was spent making sense of the findings from Bruges and preparing media files shot on the previous day. Students decided how to spend their time and what to do. They submitted their plans in the morning and then started to work. It quickly became apparent to them that they now had information overload and almost all the groups started to edit and refine their work. This was interesting to watch as it is a skill we often teach and yet here were students independently recognising that it needed to happen.

DAY NINE – Statuesque
This day was devoted to throwing in one last challenge. Students were told that a sculpture had to be built to commemorate the link between the two places and they needed to submit a design. After the initial design was complete, students were asking about their presentations so we allowed students to manage their own time, as long as the whole project was completed, they could do whatever was necessary. So, they did.

DAY TEN – The Final Presentation
Parents and assorted visitors had been told to arrive at 1:30 pm and so students had four hours to complete their presentations about marketing Ipswich, create a stall to market their approach and show their sculpture and rehearse their speech. These last few hours were frantic, but the results were worth it. Each group did a unique presentation – some with ICT, others with mock-ups, and some just talking – and impressed the audience (who were full of questions).

At the end, staff revealed that they had kept a journal and noted down achievements by students. We called them up one-by-one and said what achievements we had seen them make in the two weeks and why that made us proud.

Epilogue
I have included here a copy of the original programme. I have done this to show just how much we changed as we went along, adapting to issues and the needs and requests of students. This ability to adapt is sometimes overlooked in normal classroom scenarios and yet it was what made the learning flow and be relevant to the students at that particular time.

The spirit of this group was so strong that we have decided to let them develop the programme for nest year. They will come up with the ideas, manage the budget, make the bookings and find the materials. Should be an interesting project to blog about…

Related Posts:

• Using 'The Ten Faces of Innovation ' in the classroom
• Teaching: The Unthinking Profession
• If you could change just one thing… you would be creative
• Not Invented Here: the Cloud as the Creative Playground for Educators

In Europe and Elsewhere, 1923, Mark Twain states that:

The slowness of one section of the world about  adopting the valuable ideas of another section of it is a curious thing and unaccountable. This form of stupidity is confined to no community, to no nation; it is universal. The fact is the human race is not only slow about borrowing valuable ideas it sometimes persists in not borrowing them at all. (p. 175)

Twain was referring to the fact that nations find it difficult to use something that has already been invented and used the example of USA’s insistence on keeping their large and old-fashioned stoves although Germany had already invented one that was far more efficient and less clunky. Twain pointed to the fact that as Americans hadn’t invented the new stove it couldn’t be any good.

Teachers, and other professionals, may also be guilty of this. You may not be in this category but do read on as you might find out a thing or two about your colleagues. On a serious note, as a teacher have you ever created a classroom resource that had already been produced by someone else? Again, how many times have you heard or yourself said that “we must share more as a profession?” or that “we must find a process and system where we can share resources online”? The reason many of us are more willing to recreate a piece of work is what D. Ariely refers to as the NIH bias – or ‘Not Invented Here’ – which means that if it hasn’t been made by us it can’t be good.

In an experiment Ariely’s team wanted to check how far NIH bias was true. A control group was given a list of problems and suggested solutions. They could either choose to go with the suggested solution or think of one on their own. Ariely’s team wanted participants to come up with a solution on their own but, at the same time, reach the exact same solution that Ariely’s team had come up with before. Here are two examples of ‘problems’ that participants had to solve (the solutions are the one’s come up with by the scientists):

1. What innovative change could be made to an alarm clock to make it more efficient?

Solution: If you hit snooze your coworkers are notified via email that you overslept

2. How can communities reduce the amount of water they use without imposing tough restrictions?

Solution: Water lawns using recycled gray water recovered from household drains

In order to ensure that participants reached the same solution they were given a list of 50 words which had to be used to solve the problem. Each list contained the words or synonyms of words that made up the solutions reached by the scientists. It was hoped that this would give the control groups the feeling of ownership whilst ensuring the solutions were virtually identical. Moreover, at the top of the list there was also the words that made up Ariely’s solution but jumbled up so participants would see those words first. At the end of the experiment all participants decided not to choose the suggested solutions but their own, which were virtually identical. Ariely concluded that as human beings we attach a sense of meaning to something we have created, even if it resembles the original idea (something I discussed in more detail in this post).

As with the American and German stoves, in many respects, we sometimes over-value our own creations. In education there is sometimes a tendency to overvalue the usefulness and the significance of one’s ideas, even if they originally were produced or thought of by someone else. This is because we attach a strong sense of meaning to the resources we produce. I once had a Head of Department  who always came prepared with answers to departmental discussions although they had asked the team to consider what they felt to be the most pressing issues. Whatever solutions my colleagues and I came up with the Head of Department would match them with those on their own PowerPoint presentation. Essentially this meant crowbarring our ideas into a pre-existing slideshow, leaving us feeling demoralised and that our ideas were insignificant. By hampering creativity in this manner the department did not progress in the same way if discussion had been open.

Instead of spending time re-creating existing ideas many schools are instead taking them onboard to save on resources and have therefore time to focus on developing new and exciting ideas. There are Departments that are very effective in sharing good practice with it’s staff and some schools have started ‘best-practice hubs’ where outstanding teaching is discussed and shared. These institutions often do well and have a tendency to produce teachers that later go onto become Advanced Skills Teachers and inspiring leaders. The key to this success lay in changing the culture of both sharing, which can be difficult, but also in taking risks to become more creative and innovative.

If the ‘Not Invented Here’ dilemma hampers continued development and/or the time allowed for teachers to innovate then there are solutions which can help. Cue: creativity in ‘the cloud’…

The Cloud as the Innovation Playground for Educators

The power of Ushahidi came when people started to collaborate and this way of crowdsourcing proved to be very successful. We are posting about ideas for using Ushahidi in education at a later date.

The Not Invented Here Bias may still run deep in many of us but there are tools available to help us overcome the issue. If Mark Twain was able to take a quick peek almost 90 years after his statement, perhaps he would grant us a smile at how some people are accessing tools online to not only use each others ideas but to collaborate on mass to increase their value and depth.

Related Posts:

• Teaching: The Unthinking Profession
• Ideas for Encouraging Collaboration and Creativity Part I: how to collaborate virtually
• Ideas for Encouraging Collaboration and Creativity Part II: how to brainstorm properly
• Planning GCSE with a smile

Each year a full-time teacher receives in the region of 250-300 students who they will deliver quality learning and teaching. As teaching professionals we don’t get to choose our students, of course not, our middle leaders and the Assistant Head in charge of time-tabling will organise what classes we teach. But, can we in fact have a say in what sort of students we eventually get to mould into independent thinkers?

I came across a brief post by Seth Godin who exclaimed that businesses and companies choose their customers:

Yes, you get to choose them, not the other way around. You choose them with your pricing, your content, your promotion, your outreach and your product line…

In many respects Seth Godin’s quote echoes many truths about education and how teachers must think carefully about what students they would like in their classrooms. If we breakdown Godin’s quote and rewrite it to fit schools it could sound something like this:

Choosing your students:

Yes, you get to choose them, not the other way around. You choose them with your lesson planning, your creative skills to engage, your offer of challenge and progress, your subject and professional expertise and your respect for them…

Let’s look at each element briefly.

1. Planning:

Purposeful planning and careful lesson design will help making students want to learn and see that skills progression matters both to life as a student but also beyond the classroom. Planning takes time, particularly if you’re recently new to teaching, but this time is worth every minute. Good planning leads to good learning but this is not to say it is easy to achieve as structuring an outstanding lesson is difficult. We have written extensively about lesson planning and design in our books and in recent posts which are also worth taking a look at: Planning GCSE with a Smile, Creativity in Teaching: start designing lessons and Educational Mashups part three: creative ideas from the ‘Industry’.

2. Creativity and Engagement

Thinking carefully about the outcome(s) of the lesson is crucial so that students learn and their skills develop. Creative and engaging lesson activities will help you and them to meet those outcomes. For example, how can you make a difficult concept easier to understand or in what ways can you help them find a topic more enjoyable? As teachers we know very well that if we plan good lessons with engaging and creative ideas students are more likely to enjoy it which means they stand a greater chance of learning and not behaving in such a way that would be detrimental to their and others’ learning. We have devoted a lot of time to developing creative and engaging lesson activities which will help you to plan effective lessons that are packed with learning, take a look at these posts: Educational Mashups Part four: creativity boosts from the wise, Simplicity at its best and Handheld Learning beyond the Classroom.

3. Challenge and Progress

I once heard a student talk about their options and they were to select them depending on how ‘easy’ they were. I later taught this student and in one conversation she explained that the easy subjects had become boring and that those that made her think were more enjoyable. Even if a student asks to watch a film it is unlikely they will enjoy that as much as having to work hard at solving a problem, collaborating on a project or receiving positive feedback on a piece of writing. This is why it is important to produce activities that not only challenge them to think but also moves their thinking forward. Purposeful feedback will help here. Take a look at these posts for further ideas about challenging students and motivating them through good feedback: Shred Their Work: or Reflections on Student Motivation and Using ‘The Ten Faces of Innovation ‘ in the classroom.

4. Subject and Professional Expertise

Terry Haydn, Senior Reader at the University of East Anglia and our old mentor (well, he’s not really old just very experienced!), always said that sound subject knowledge contributes to sound lesson content and that the power of good exposition should not be forgotten. Indeed, good story telling can enliven topics and give structure and a road-map to the ‘bigger picture’ that the class to follow. We also strongly believe that a broad understanding of our profession is key to becoming an excellent teacher and that this should never end. However, we urge you to read books that may not directly link with our profession, so not books about teaching but to cross-pollinate ideas from other fields like marketing, design, music, art and business. In return for reading, listening, watching and discussing with people from other industries other than education you will be rewarded with a myriad of stimulating and creative ideas. We have written a series of posts on cross-pollination called Educational Mashups which could be used as a starting point: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 .

5. Respect

In my work as Advisor I often get the opportunity to talk to OFSTED inspectors or receive training on lesson observations. One thing that always crop up both during lesson debriefs and in whole school feedback is the relationships between students and their teachers. Those teachers that have strong relations with their classes rarely have many behavioural problems compared to those who do not. However, this type of relationship does not happen quickly and involves more than jokes and understanding students backgrounds. Strong relationships between the teacher and their class happen when there is a clear and continued dialogue as well as exchange of thoughts. This is where good feedback, Assessment for Learning, Student Voice and just plain politeness are needed in order for this dialogue and exchange to occur. This post deals with how relationships can be solidified via purposeful feedback and enhanced student involvement:  Shred Their Work: or Reflections on Student Motivation.

The correct ingredients in making the perfect class is of course variable and the list provided above is by no means exhaustive, but will hopefully give some insight into what we as teachers try to do. In this respect, perhaps Seth Godin’s advice works in education as in business – we do get a say in choosing what sort of customers/students we get to work with or teach…eventually?

Related Posts:

• Planning GCSE with a smile
• Creativity in Teaching (Part 3: start designing lessons)
• Planning Lessons using the Principles of Sticky
• Musings on Creativity in Teaching (Part 2: Lessons from Bananarama and Depeche Mode)

Don’t care Sir : or the importance of feedback

Spend a few seconds pondering about this thought experiment:

You work as a resource creator in a school. This means that you create exciting new PowerPoint presentations every week that include challenging tasks, inspiring images for discussion and so on. You are very proud of your slides. At the end of the week you hand over your beautifully crafted presentations to your Line Manager who deletes them without even looking. This happens weekly but you get paid a handsome salary. How do you feel about this?

Let’s turn this story on its head and pose this scenario instead:

You are a student in a school. This means that you will create, produce and complete a series of tasks and activities. At the end of the week you have handed in more than five pieces of work. You feel very proud each time a piece of work is handed in to your teacher. Next lesson your work is returned to you. It does not contain any comments or feedback about your masterpiece. This happens in most lessons and you are forced to do this weekly. How do you feel about this?

Providing feedback is an essential ingredient to ensure that students’ motivation is maintained otherwise there’s little point in working hard and trying to achieve. Their intrinsic motivation is heightened each time they receive critical and positive comments in their work, more so than if we try to convince them that it’s important they work hard otherwise they won’t get a good job. It is the immediacy that is the crucial factor in them progressing and becoming more motivated.

Providing good feedback:

1. Refrain from commenting on all work as it might become repetitive and meaningless

2. Acknowledge that you have seen their day-to-day classwork with a tick or stamp

3. Select milestone tasks e.g. an end of unit task that you mark and provide detailed feedback using the power of Assessment for Learning (we wrote a lot about effective assessment ideas in our last book). If you haven’t decided on these milestones as a department then we encourage you to do so first.

4. Hand back work as quickly as possible so that students link the homework/assessment with your feedback.

5. Allow students time re-draft work or parts of work based on the feedback you provided them – this is a concrete way to make them see their own progression.

For more ideas about engaging and purposeful assessment see this extract from our book Exam Class Toolkit

Shred it : or why praise really matters

In the brilliant book The Upside of Irrationality , Dan Ariely and his team investigate the relationship between motivation and a person’s meaning to their work. In this experiment they created a sheet of paper with a random sequence of letters on them and asked particpants to find instances where a letter ‘S’ was followed by another letter ‘S’. They were told that each sheet contained 10 instances of consecutive ‘S:s’. Participants were to find all ten instances of the S:s to complete a sheet. They would be paid: 55 cents for sheet 1 , 50 cent for sheet 2 and so forth until they got to the 12th page where they would receive nothing.

Three conditions were examined:

1. The Acknowledged condition:

In this control group participants were asked to write their names on each sheet prior to starting the task. When a sheet had been completed it was handed over to the researcher who would examine it carefully, nod and show their appreciation of the participants work before adding it on top of a pile of paper.

2. The Ignored condition

This group would complete the same task as the previous group but were not asked to write their name on top of each sheet. When they handed over a completed sheet the researcher took it without saying thank you and without looking at the sheet before adding it to a stack of paper.

3. The Shredded Condition

Unlike the the other two conditions, this group would hand over their sheets but instead of placing it on top of a pile of paper, the researcher placed it in a shredder without even glancing at it.

The results were rather interesting. As you can imagine, the ‘Acknowledged’ condition completed more sheets of paper than the ‘Shredded’ condition after payment had ceased. In fact, 49% of participants from the former condition completed 10 or more sheets compared to 17% from the ‘Shredded’ condition. Interestingly, the average number of sheets produced by the ‘Shredded’ condition was virtually identical to that of the ‘Ignored’ condition where 18% managed to produce 10 sheets or more after payment had ceased. So there was no major difference between the group whose work was destroyed and the group that was ignored.

In a school context this is a no-brainer: if you want to lower motivation amongst students then either bin their work or don’t bother to look at it. On the other hand, if you wish to motivate them, give them praise and acknowledge when they have produced something good. But if you think about it, it’s more complex than that. If you provide students with thoughtful praise and feedback rather than simply giving them a grade, they are more likely to work harder because of the effect of meaning on their work. It becomes clear to them that their effort was worth it. As teachers many of us crave recognition for our work either from colleagues, Senior Leaders or from our students. This is the reason why being a teacher is a bit like a roller-coaster ride, there are constant ups and downs depending on the amount of praise we receive. Being a student is more difficult, going from lesson to lesson up to five hours a day, working, listening and contributing in different ways. Acknowledging what they have to say and what they produce will ensure they don’t feel like we’re shredding their work.

IKEA School: or getting students involved

If you open a jar of pre-made of pesto and add that to pasta, how far would you feel pride over your creation? Not much we could assume. How about if you blend together some fresh basil leaves, olive oil, garlic, pine nuts, a dash of chili-powder and then add that over a bowl of fresh pasta? The feeling is probably rather different. You might even insist on finding out what other people around the dinner table think of your culinary skills? The difference between the two scenarios is simple: you were not involved in the former whereas you were in the latter. On a similar note, if you’ve ever constructed furniture from IKEA perhaps you would agree that you felt rather chuffed with yourself both after completing the piece of furniture and a long time afterwards (maybe each time you look at it?). This is the ‘IKEA effect’, if you get something for free you may not enjoy it as much as if you had been involved in its creation. So in this respect, effort creates long-term satisfaction and motivation. The question is of course, how much effort do students have to consume before they take pride in their work if the IKEA effect is to be true?

Johannes taught a top-set Year 9 about why some events are more significant than others throughout history. Their final piece of work involved creating a memorial of a person or event they regarded as ‘significant’ that they had studied over the past year. As part of the work they have to consider the following criteria:

• convince fellow classmates why your event should be labelled ‘significant’
• construct your memorial (model, text or more abstract e.g. ‘a day’)
• present your creation to the class

The outcome of this project was interesting. Although this class by nature was hard-working and dedicated students in general, something changed during the span of this extended task. As part of the activity they had to construct their memorial by first producing a draft which their teachers reviewed, complete the memorial, write a script as well as prepare some form of presentation. Those segments of the task were straight forward and students were used to working in that way. The change came when they were informed that there would be an exhibition where they would present their work to passing visitors and that these ‘visitors’ would grade their work based on agreed historical criteria of ‘significance’. The impact on meaning of their work and therefore on motivation showed a marked difference from that moment on. They had, in many respects, built a piece of work from scratch and after much research on the subject. Now, faced with yet another challenge they were to meet their peers who would evaluate this construction. The pressure was on.

The final exhibition was a real success. Students spent the best part of a lesson to prepare and then exhibited their work the following day. Each student had a small area where they would display their piece, many used computers as they had created movies, 3D Models, presentations and so on. Visitors started walking around the various displays filling in their evaluation sheets, asking questions or generally commenting on the work on display. When the first group of visitors had finished, the class swapped so exhibitors became visitors. All students had also been given a sweet which they would give the memorial they felt signified the most significant event/person. At the end of the task we got the class together and talked about their experience. They commented that they:

- were very nervous about being critiqued by their peers
- needed longer to create their piece of significance next time
- felt proud over their own but also classmates’ efforts
- enjoyed thinking about everything they’ve studied
- had been challenged to think

From a teacher’s perspective learning happened on different levels. In terms of skills students moved up Bloom’s Taxonomy and tackled the difficult skills of both evaluation and synthesis when they used their understanding of the whole of year 9 history, planned and constructed their ‘memorials’ as well as critiqued others’ work. Students really worked hard at trying to convince each other that their memorial was the most accomplished one. But perhaps most importantly, students wanted to do well and they were motivated by the opportunity to show off their work to classmates. Although the challenge of public speaking could have added negative stimulus in terms of social pressure but because they talked to individual ‘or pairs of visitors’ this never occurred.

When the class took an end of year survey several weeks later about their views on the subject as a whole the vast majority commented that the memorial task and others similar to it were the highlight of the year.

There are other ways where we can involve students more actively in their learning so that their effort creates long-term satisfaction and motivation – the IKEA effect – for example:

1. Students get involved in the production of resources

2. Involve the class in deciding on the layout of the VLE or Department website

3. Why not get students involved in teaching mini lessons? We wrote about getting students involved in teaching lessons in one of our books.

Using the power of Student Voice and consider how you can plan lessons with more active involvement from your class are important components in increasing motivation amongst students. We don’t have to go to the extent of shredding students’ work to demotivate them and decrease learning, ignoring to use purposeful praise and meaningful feedback will have the same effect.

Related Posts:

• Planning Lessons using the Principles of Sticky
• If you could change just one thing… you would be creative
• Choosing Your Students
• Creativity in Teaching (Part 3: start designing lessons)