“What makes outstanding teaching?” The question that seems to resonate in every CPD session; every course or programme and in the back of every teacher’s mind. We are all on a journey to find that one key: a sole answer to a profound rhetoric.
To tell you the truth- we have no clue! No answer! But, we do have observations, suggestions and gut feelings. Over the past few weeks Jane, Nic and myself have been challenged to think outside of the box: to step down from speaking at the front of the classroom and instead become the students, our lesson- “what does learning actually look like?”
We were asked by leadership to attend the OLEVI Outstanding Teacher Programme; this programme helped us to explore exactly what it was that made outstanding teaching: we revisited many teaching concepts, but really we were pushed to think and explore what learning meant and how we knew it was happening around us. As the weeks went by we got to grips with key terms like DR ICE and ways of thinking about how effective our questioning is. The poignant acronym for us was ‘SDP’ – Shallow, Deep and Profound. This pinpointed every student, in every lesson and every activity we have ever set.
The broad differences between shallow, deep and profound learning are presented in the following model:
| Shallow | Deep | Profound | |
| What? | How? | Why? | |
| Means | Memorisation | Reflection | Intuition |
| Outcomes | Information | Knowledge | Wisdom |
| Evidence | Replication | Understanding | Meaning |
| Motivation | Extrinsic | Intrinsic | Moral |
| Attitudes | Compliance | Interpretation | Challenge |
| Relationships | Dependence | Independence | Interdependence |
| (Single Loop) | (Double Loop) | (Triple Loop) |
As part of the OTP programme Jane, Nic and myself had to model teaching and learning with a group of students basing our teaching strategies on things we felt would promote learning and progress within a lesson. We decided to use my year 10 T9 group as our target, they are an early entry Literature group, studying Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. We wanted to develop Profound thinking and learning through cross-curricular teaching. As we were already in a triad we decided to expand our project to Lesson Study and developed our model using “Stretch and challenge through questioning.”
We decided to have a ‘hook’ question for our cross curricular day: “What makes us human?” This allowed each of us to explore elements in our own subject area, creating meaningful learning that would deepen thinking and promote ‘stretch and challenge’ for not only target students, but all students in the room.
After a few logistics were implemented, we had our day mapped out ( 3 lessons out of 5) and we each planned our individual sections.
Art: Jane
- Introduction to artist Eduardo Paolozzi and his method of collage and mixed-media.
- Students experimented with the same techniques while addressing the overarching question of “What does it mean to be human?”
Science: Nic
-
- Flip learning: written response to articles on Galvani, face transplants and hand transplants.
- Lesson discussion on why a recipient may have a different emotional response to a face transplant than eg a heart transplant.
- Scientific exploration of the ideas of “What does it means to be human?”
English: Sabrina
- Science experts to deliver information from previous lesson to the group
- Students to explore extracts from the novel, these extracts uncover the initial feelings of the monster’s character and how he sees himself
- Students to explore thoughts of the monster and whether the reader sees him as human or not and why
- DIRT Reflection on the day: “ What does it mean to be human?”
Students loved the experience of the day and going to different classrooms with the view of doing another subject, but linking the ideas back to the English Classroom. Students enjoyed the factual scientific discussion most. They found that they were able to explore and understand real ideas with ease. Students loved the idea of having 3 teachers in the room; this was surprising but it was something most students commented on- they enjoyed how they were able to ask different teachers questions and get alternate ways of explaining an idea.
https://blog.ed.ted.com/2015/10/13/teach-science-with-art-this-astronomer-says-yes/
What we have discovered from the whole process?
Meeting up with other teachers is the most valuable teaching resource ever! Taking a few minutes to bounce ideas off a colleague, no matter which subject area they are from is totally invaluable!
On a whole the process of lesson study and tying into the OLEVI course really promoted the way that we were thinking and planning. Because of the course, the 3 of us actually had time to think about what exactly we wanted to achieve and how we could do that effectively making impactful links between subjects. The extension in the classroom and within the context of ‘Frankenstein’ was phenomenal. The students were able to think logically about context and practical feelings of human ethics; they were able to explore identity and what is means to ‘be human’ through artist expression; finally they were able to tie these thoughts together and understand characters and how the author has presented these complicated issues.
Personally as the English lead, this process was invaluable. We had time constraints as we had to teach a course developed for a two year period in one year. We had to not only ‘stretch’ higher ability students but also help them develop mature responses a year early. Without the impact of doing the lesson study, these responses would not have been possible.
WyedeanCPD 