Assignment_1

Contents 1 Introduction 2 A-placement school context, ethos and policies 3 Theories of learning, learning styles 7 Teaching styles and strategies 10 Evidence of professional values and practice 13 Conclusion 14 Bibliography and Reference List 16 Introduction “Observation is in one sense a research exercise.” (Capel, 2009 p.77) The aim of this assignment is to link the personal experience of observing a pupil’s school day with current pedagogy theories, teaching strategies and learning styles. An overview of the A-placement school, its policies, ethos and context is given in order to show how a pupil’s timetable and lessons fit into this school‘s very own context, which will vary from school to school. The observations made on one school day are a reflection of the daily routines a student (further to be referred to as Martha) follows as well as the teachers whose classes the learner attended. The data was gathered on the 4th of November 2010 by following and observing Martha (11 years old from White British heritage) as a learning pupil and several teachers’ performances. She was introduced to the fact of being observed and responded very well. Most of the lessons she seemed to have forgotten about it, was on task and concentrated on the class teacher. In the end there will be an answer to how teaching is happening and as consequence of a, or various, teaching strategies and styles how learning is taking place. The pupil’s reactions to teacher input, questioning and guiding are evaluated. A-placement school: context, ethos and policies “A relaxed, caring environment where students are encouraged to achieve their potential.” (GGSG School’s prospectus) Gravesend Grammar School for Girls (GGSG) is a selective girls only school attended by 979 pupils at present. There are 74 full- time teachers teaching a range of subjects throughout Key stage (KS) 3, 4 and 5, including Art, three Languages, three Science Subjects, Drama, Design & Technology, PE et al. The school has about 40 people support staff acting in a variety of duties: Business manager, Pastoral Support Assistant, Technicians to name but a few. An instrument for the distribution of more subjects is the applied two-week timetable. Using a different timetable in week one and yet another in week two opens up possibilities to offer more subjects to all students, like providing two compulsory languages in KS3 (out of three offered at the school). The same can be said about Science. This may be partly because the school also has a Specialist Science College status since 2004 and is a Specialist Language College since 2009. The school’s two sides are at a five minutes walking distance. As the students have to cross roads to get to the other side of the school premises there is a crossing- petrol half way on a zebra crossing at all times available. Most of the students are of White British origin. Nevertheless there is an approximately 25% who have English as an Additional Language (EAL), mainly coming from an Indian background (16%). This can be compared with an 11.1% at secondary schools in whole Britain and with a 54.1% of pupils with EAL in inner London. Another interesting number in this context is that over 200 languages are spoken in homes of English school children. (English as an additional language – Introduction. On-line) This is why the school has an especially designated EAL support member of staff who deals with issues arising amongst EAL students. KS3 and 4 students is given the opportunity to attend lunch time subject support groups, which are led by KS5 students and opens up a great opportunity for these older students not only to share their knowledge but at the same time reinforce their own subject knowledge, be models for their younger fellows and represent the school ethos of being a positive, helpful and respectful school. Martha as well as her classmates is very grateful for this support because they are able to take part whenever they like to, they need help or whenever they feel like doing something different on that particular day at lunchtime. She was saying that she admires the older ones for their knowledge in the subject and the support they offer, always showing respect and understanding for the younger learners. She also is very positive about her own academic development. Being a Specialist School for Science and Languages the students and teachers have access to computers everywhere and at any time. Each classroom is fitted with an interactive whiteboard. There is a computer room for students and one for teachers as well as a newly installed language lab. Its use so far though is limited to Year 10s and above and for the exceptional use of the Department of Modern Foreign Languages in order to preserve its life expectance. The use of ICT is encouraged but also very well monitored to ensure at all times a high grade of safety for all users. The promotions of ICT use though will add to the students’ lifetime skills and therewith prepare them for a life after school. Homework is considered a major learning support strategy and is applied from the beginning on. It is designed to consolidate knowledge and skills and last but not least to stimulate a wider interest in each subject to encourage self-reliance and develop the necessary abilities for becoming an independent learner. Students in Year seven are expected to do at least one-hour homework every evening rising up to two hours in Years 10 and 11. To ensure consistency throughout the whole school apparatus for homework setting there is a rota for homework. It is the form tutors duty, one of several, to check at register by talking to his form students if subject teachers set homework according to the plan. If the students have issues whatever nature the first person to address is their form tutor. She will pass inquiries on, give support in problem solving or redirect them to address their issues to the according person within the staff. There is for example a school nurse coming from outside to help the students every Tuesday in confidential consultations with any medical or any other problems, as she stresses during an assembly on the 10th of October. When joining the school in Year 7 the newly arrived are supplied with little booklets about school policies, ethos and the code of conduct. They have to sign several forms to show the understanding and acknowledge the receipt of those policies. Focus is set on a student’s awareness of moral, spiritual and cultural values as well as on respect for and tolerance of others. This can be sensed throughout the whole school as everyone is respectful, friendly and helpful, be it the students with each other, with the teachers, teachers with students and teachers amongst each other. Further to mentions is a policy about the strict no use of mobile phones on the premises unless directed to by a member of staff. Another one is the Merit Stamp Code (Carrots), which regulates the reasons of giving out merits to students, starting in Year 7 up to 6th Form. This is very well received by the students who have to ensure that their accounts are set up right and up to date at all times. Martha sees in it a great possibility in having control over her work, achievement and development. It also serves as a tool for behaviour control. Another strategy for behaviour management is the newly introduced memo slip. This is used by teachers after addressing a pupil about her being late, delivering inadequate homework or not delivering it at all, for being unprepared for a lesson, persistent low level poor behaviour. The tutor is approached and parents made aware of memos. Action then is taken by the tutor and is dependent on the memo. The student is informed about it and at all times is acknowledged about further steps in order to still show her respect. 3. Theories of learning, learning styles “Did you know, that the maximum concentration time for children is about two minutes more than their age. Even adults cannot concentrate for longer than 20-25 minutes.” A statement made by Giles Osborne during Professional Studies on the 23rd of September 2010 which since has been in my mind and became very evident during my observation of Martha in Year 7 at GGSG. It seems that the social constructivist theories of Vygotsky and Bruner are quite legitimate on the background of such statement. They are based on the theory that pupils learn or build up knowledge by doing something. This is agreed by Piaget’s Cognitive and Developmental Theories. He identifies their own action as starting point of child’s learning and with it their intellectual growth. (Geen, 2007) Learning by doing could be in form of a discussion, discovering and exploring and last but not least in form of asking questions. This is something that Martha’s form tutor said right at the beginning of the observation day: ”Ask! Ask! Ask! You have to make questions in order to understand!” It is important for the learners to be able to explore subjects and topics rather than the teacher trying to put information into them by using confrontational teaching strategies as followers of this theory believe. According to Geen (2007) the students have to draw out of the experienced their own understanding and results of knowledge. Exactly this was observed in a science lesson. The pupils were working on a case study where they had to investigate a fictitious murder. They were asked to use a ruler in order to measure the suspects’ footprints three times at least. Each student had a laminated colour coded footprint. After the measuring they were asked to give their findings and all came up with different results, even if they had the same couloured sheet and therefore the same footprint. Like this the students themselves were able to work out that no one measurement is the same, and that even a footprint is not always a footprint. It could be half a footprint, a toe cut and so on. Nobody was able to fail this exercise, even if the outcomes were not even near to similar to their peers. Hence the pupils’ motivation of continuing the experiment was ensured, which is, according to Kyriacou (2009), important for effective teaching. It “requires teachers to nurture and support pupils’ efforts”. (p 34) During this lesson Martha was fully emerged into the topic. As she said after the lesson she was really enjoying herself and the experimental exercise with the followed discussions in small groups and in the whole class. Kyriacou (2009) identifies main key factors to pupil’s learning: one is the “attentiveness” (p 27), which simply means that the student has to be present in order to receive information and explore it. The other is “receptiveness”, which is to be understood as the student’s “willingness to learn and respond to the suggested exercise.” (p 27) It has to be remarked that during the observed science lesson there was only talking going on when the students were asked to talk and it was always meaning and purposeful speech. The teacher therefore clearly had targeted his learning objectives age according, but still challenging. As put in the ‘Subject Audit and Action Plan’ she set SMART targets (SMART for specific, measureable, achieveable, realistic, time related). These were planned beforehand and while planning, the teacher obviously also took into consideration the different learning styles of her students. Based on neuro-linguistic programmes this movement categorises learners into visual (V), the auditory (A) and the kinaesthetic (K) learner. To explain this further I can give an example of Martha: During a SPARKS lesson Martha and her classmates were asked to find out, with the help of a questionnaire, what kind of learners they are. After having answered about twenty questions, Martha found out that she is a more kinaesthetic but also a visual learner. When comparing her findings with the whole class they realised that a lot of them were as well kinaesthetic learners. This means for the student that she is better helped with activities such as role-play, catch the mascot, or find a partner, but to name a few, in order for learning taking place. Whereas posters, charts or videos would help the visual learner and debates, rhymes and discussions would help the auditory learner. Knowing this the teacher can make sure to incorporate in each lesson activities that will attract attention from all different learning styles. But the list of theories about how learning takes place is endless, as there is the amount of offered texts about it. Often enough points are picked up and so did I find out it occurs with VAK learning styles. 4. Teaching styles and strategies “The teacher’s job is first and foremost to ensure that pupils learn.” (Capel, 2009 p. 11) How can the teacher then make sure that learning takes place' What styles and strategies can she use' Before teaching takes place in the classroom at GGSG the students make their way to the designated room and enter the room first. The procedure continuous by the arrival of the teacher. The students then have to stand up in silence. Once silence is established the teacher greets the class and the class answers back with: “Good morning, Ms. Or Mr.“ This is a routine that is followed throughout the whole school, but best practised by year sevens and eights. Problems that go along with this strategy can be seen in the moment the teacher needs to set up the classroom. What are the pupils doing while the teacher logs into the school system in order to take the register' As could be observed, they start stirring up. They have been nice and quietly standing for the welcoming of the teacher but now they are given an opportunity to wind themselves up again. Precious teaching and learning opportunities are missed. Even the well behaved Martha and her friends started chatting. The opportunity is just too good to let go. From this moment on everything could go wrong. As the art teacher says: “The first moments are crucial. If you don’t get them there and then on board you may have lost them for the rest of the lesson.” The maths teacher in Period 2 overcame this problem rather cleverly by using a calmer activity that was handed out by two students. This activity was used to start the students off thinking in the subject, in silence and on their own. In the meantime the teacher was able to start the computer, log on and be ready to continue the teaching and learning experience. Once the teacher has set up the technical side of the lesson she can start taking the register, which is taken in every single lesson as well as first thing in the mornings to start the day with the form tutor. Again this is quite disruptive and takes away another two precious minutes of teaching and learning. The department for Modern Foreign Languages overcomes this problem by asking the students to answer to the calling of their names with for example the past tense of any verb in the target language. Like this at least one of the attainment targets (listening, speaking, writing and reading) is met right at the beginning. Other teachers just let them go and have to re-establish calmness once the register is done and the teaching and learning experience can take place. In all the observed lessons the teacher had planned towards objectives, in order to focus on teaching and to structure the learning. With setting this target or objectives the students are acknowledged of the aims of the lesson, which gives them a first overview of what is going to happen throughout. Martha finds this quite useful yet that it enables her to have a clear idea of the outcome of the lesson. Sometimes she says, she wonders how the teacher will make them achieve these objectives. Often enough though she is surprised by the subject knowledge and the teacher’s ability to present the topic by offering a variety of activities that involve fun, interaction with the teacher as well as with other students and individual work. Capel (2009) argues that a teacher has to transform her own knowledge into “suitable tasks, which lead to learning.” (Capel, 2009 p.14) A tenor throughout literature related to teaching that must be mentioned as well is the emphasis on mutual respect teachers and students have to have and show for each other. In none of the observed lessons could be spotted disrespect against an adult or a child. The atmosphere is throughout friendly and the teachers are full of praise for their students as well as the students are happy about their teachers. “I like the teachers at GGSG”, so says Martha. “They seem to really care about me.” 5. Evidence of professional values and practice “Most people enter the profession with a strong sense of personal identity and of personal values.” (Pollard, 2005 p. 95) As already mentioned above, teachers praised their students in all the observed lessons that day and on any other day before. This gives evidence of a caring teacher who is interested in a childs development. The teachers at GGSG I observed are highly motivated and one can really sense their passion for teaching and for their subject. I have not seen a lesson in which the teacher would let have private problems an impact on his professionality, as is suggested to be an evidence of professional values by the DfES 2003. “As a teacher you need to identify your values, aims and commitment and consider indicators of their actual implementation. Like this we are able to judge whether what we do really matches what we say we believe.” (Pollard, 2006 p. 98) 6. Conclusion “There are as many ways of being an effective teacher as there are effective teachers” (Capel, 2009 p. 10) To summarize it can be said that every person is different and therefore there is no one teaching strategy or one and only learning style. Teaching and learning are as complex as a human being can be. Therefore teaching is a challenging task but also rewarding when you see pupil achieving. „I got it, Miss!“ Is probably one of the best things said to make a teacher proud of the work she has done. Nevertheless there are regulations to teaching, to what and how to teach. These may be set by the school through policies, code of conduct and ethos. Or by setting Quality Standards which insure a coherence to the professional and occupational standards for the whole school workforce. And last but not least the National Curriculum, which regulates the lesson framework. And still there is enough room for the individual teacher and each student who both can make an impact and have their say to what extend and how learning and teaching is happening. This leads me to the conclusion that while preparing a lesson I as a teacher have to take into consideration that I have a multitude of sometimes up to 30 characters who themselves have a multitude of abilities to learn. This means that when preparing I have to make sure to address to as many persons, skills and learning styles as possible. Therewith differentiation is in my eyes the main key factor for lesson planning baring in mind that a great amount of fun needs to be included in order to catch pupils attention, to challenge them in an enjoyable way and make lesson topics relevant to their here and now.