Involve me and I’ll understand

Great strategies for active and independent learning

Involving students in their learning in an active way is crucial to effective learning and engaged, motivated kids. Active learning is a process that has student learning at its centre. Active learning focuses on how students learn, not just on what they learn. Students are encouraged to ‘think hard’, rather than passively receive information from the teacher. With active learning, students play an important part in their own learning process. They build knowledge and understanding in response to opportunities provided by their teacher.

Here are some ideas that I frequently share with teachers engaged in Cambridge Assessment International Examinations using their publication Active Learning on how we can involve all our students so they remember.

Ideas for active learning

Guess the Lesson Objective - Tell your students that you are not going to tell them the lesson objectives or key questions at the start. Instead you are going to ask them at the end what they think the objectives or key questions were. This will ensure the students listen very carefully and think about the ‘big picture’. It will also help you to be really focused on the learning outcomes for the lesson.

Provocation - A ‘provocation’ is an activity that provokes or encourages student thinking:

·???????Ask the students to think of the questions they want to ask about a particular topic.

·???????Use a relevant image to provoke thought and discussion.

Model a learning activity (or show a video of it). Instead of explaining it, ask the student open-ended questions about it.

Visible Thinking - Visible thinking is an approach designed to make the learning process clearer. In other words, students get to know the processes which go into deeper thinking:

·???????Think - Puzzle - Explore. This is a ‘thinking routine’, which links students’ existing knowledge to their future independent enquiry. Students answer the questions:

o??What do you think you know about the topic?

o??What questions (puzzles) do you have?

o??How can you explore this topic?

·???????See – Think – Wonder. This is another thinking routine. It is designed to work with images, but could also work with lots of other things, such as watching a video clip, or carrying out an experiment. Students answer the questions:

o??What do you see?

o??What do you think about that?

o??What does it make you wonder?

Questioning - Give students time to think of an answer before asking for responses. This might just mean insisting on a waiting time of 3 seconds or it might be that you give students 5 minutes to think about an answer before you ask them for their response.

·???????Consider choosing students to answer, rather than asking for a show of hands. That way all students know they might be asked to contribute.

·???????Use open-ended questions where possible. This allows students to think more deeply.

·???????Push the students to develop their points by asking follow-up questions. Good questions include, “Go on...", “why do you think that?”, “could you say more?”.

·???????Get students to write their own open-ended questions for the class to discuss, or exam-style questions for the class to answer. You could then choose the best ones to be answered in the next part of the lesson or for homework.

Class debate - Students work in groups to prepare statements either for or against a key statement – For example: ‘Global warming is a fictional idea created by politicians to further their own agenda’. Students feed their statements back to the class. Groups then have time to think about questions they want to ask other groups. These questions can be used as the basis for a debate across the opposing groups.

Quiz creation - Get your students to design quizzes to share amongst the class. This could be done on paper, or you could use a free online tool such as Quizlet or Hot Potatoes.

Modelling - Model what ‘good’ looks like for your learners to reinforce the learning points. Help students to ask their own questions and design their own ‘good’ models to answer these.

Exit activities - Ask students to do something on exit from the classroom which keeps them thinking right to the end, such as:

·???????Students write one thing they have learned and one question they want to discuss on a ‘post-it’ note and stick them to the wall as they leave.

·???????Teachers ask an ‘exit question’ or give an ‘exit fact’. The question or fact should be as thought-provoking as possible.

The ‘Flipped Classroom’ - Traditionally, classes have often focussed on helping students to acquire knowledge, with homework time being used for the development and application of this knowledge. In a flipped classroom, the opposite happens. Students get to know a topic before the lesson, and then the lesson is used for activities which develop their thinking and understanding.

Examples of activities in preparation for the lesson include:

·???????Note-taking from a textbook

·???????Reading an article on the topic

·???????Listening to a podcast or watching a video.

·???????Doing some research the class.

·???????Examples of lesson activities include:

·???????Discussion or seminar based on the homework

·???????A problem-solving task

·???????An essay-planning activity

ABOUT MISTER STEVE TRAINING AND CONSULTANCY

Steve Burnage offers consultancy, training and coaching to schools and school leaders internationally through Mister Steve Training and Consultancy. In addition, he provides consultancy services through many UK and International training providers, he works extensively with education reform projects in India, Egypt Pakistan, and Bangladesh, he is a leadership coach to new and aspiring headteachers in Europe, The Middle East, China, and the Indian Subcontinent, he is a GCSE and A’ level examiner; and regularly contributes keynote speeches, articles and ‘think pieces’ to education conferences and publications worldwide. To find out more, please call +44 7767858360 or Email [email protected]