The Learning and Teaching Forum Term 1 MAKING GROUPS WORK A SUMMARY OF EFFECTIVE TALK FOR LEARNING IN PRACTICE.

. The group has had 2 meetings so far, and the consensus led us to the following structure for the Year. Term 1 Talk for Learning and Effective group Work Teaching students how to work more effectively in groups by showing them the expected frameworks for conversation Term 2 Thinking skills Developing exciting, challenging activities and tasks that become the vehicle for effective group work Term 3 Critical questioning Both teachers and students interrogating the learning that has happened through deeper questioning skills.

Focus Detail

To form Coaching Triangles and to complete one round of peer observation before the Christmas Break. Time table of this to be sent to Pete Crawley please. (see attached form) Pete Crawley to carry out one observation with the lead coaches in each curriculum area to show QA has been monitored. To meet again as a group between Half Term and Christmas to share the good practice and experience that has been observed. Forum members will provide a brief written record (2 paragraphs max 1 side A4) of an example of best practise that they have seen which Pete will collate and share to all staff through his Professional Tutor Blog and in a Best Practise appendices to the Learning and Teaching Framework document.

Talk for Group Work Summary Term 1 Maths The talk factory was used with 2 year 9 set 1 classes with 30 students in each and 1 year 7 set 5 class with 14 students. The main benefit has been initially seen in the smaller class. In 7 set 5 each group is given a picture to discuss with 3 questions 1) What do you see 2) What do you think 3) What do you wonder

One student is allocated as a scribe to write down discussions. Debbie is listening to each group and marking comments. The picture is of bars of gold. The students are encouraged by the talk factory headings to ask each other what they think. The discussions are very focused and everyone in the group is asked what they think by the scribe. If students disagreed with each other they are asked why. They moved systematically through the questions. At the end of this discussion Debbie praises students for having a more focused discussion than from the previous lesson. This idea is clearly working with this smaller group. As discussions progressed the students were more focused on each other and ignored the talk factory options on the board. This shows that they were taking on board and embedding the ideas as part of natural discussion.

In this situation the talk factory has been successful because a) The key questions are set to open the discussion, giving the students a starting point b) The scribe guides the group through the discussion and takes a lead c) The scribe almost takes the teachers role and makes sure everyone is included giving a sense of responsibility d) As the discussions progress the talk factory is forgotten and the students naturally continue in a focused manner

In both year 9 classes the best way to know if the TF has been successful is from the feedback from the students. With such big classes the teacher can hear snippets of discussion or simply focus on a few groups. After an activity the teachers asked each group for their thoughts/ideas and this is where it could be discovered how successful the TF had been. In maths we naturally have students discussing in pairs or groups for discovery learning and the success is in assessments. The Year 9 SOW has been written with a focus on group work. We both found (Ian and me) we only have to drop in the TF headings once in a while to reestablish ground rules. The key difference between the year 7 and year 9 TF was the words we used in the headings. In year 9 we focused more on explain, justify, give a counter example, where else might this be useful etc. In year 7 we kept it more simple (see 3 questions above) plus WHY?

Subita Hudson-Hayward Talk for Group Work Summary Term 1 - Humanities As part of our coaching triangle focus we wanted to develop high quality verbal feedback in our lessons. Talk for learning has been a really useful vehicle which has enabled our students to have more focussed and meaningful class discussions. In our first episode RJA was observed by CHI and GGI the focus was on why young men wanted to fight in the First World War. Initially students were given a mystery to discuss and staff observed each group. Whilst the higher ability groups were focussed some of the middle ability groups lacked focus at times in their discussions. After a few minutes RJA introduced the Talk for learning foci and conversations resumed. In all groups far more meaningful learning conversations were taking place, boys in particular responded well to the immediate feedback on the whiteboard and liked the competitive element of ensuring the scored positive rather than negative feedback. It was also interesting to hear far more students making use of the language for learning prompt sheets provided by Talk for Learning. At the end of the session the majority of students in the class felt the conversational success criteria had enabled them to focus more sharply on the issues to be discussed and include more students within their discussions that perhaps would not have had their voices heard. Staff who were observing felt that deeper learning conversations were taking place as a result of using this strategy. One area that still needs development is the issue of monitoring the success criteria versus the historical value of the conversations which at times was difficult. In further episodes it was decided to address the issue of monitoring content of conversations with the same teaching group, by printing off copies of the talk for learning criteria and appointing students as peer assessors. In an R.E episode looking at attitudes towards genetic engineering students engaged well with the success criteria and more meaningful discussions were evident from all groups more quickly as a result of this intervention. The use of the peer assessment enabled students to identify problems with their learning conversations and give each other instant feedback when necessary. At the end of both sessions we asked the students if they thought that this had helped them to focus more in lessons and the majority had found it to be

useful educational tool. Many identified themselves how often they were interrupting one another and were surprised at how often they were doing this without realising. Staff involved in the project commented upon its impact: We really liked the adaptations we had made in this second session and I have used it successfully in many other lessons, it has been a very useful teaching tool. We have really valued the opportunity to work collaboratively on this project and would now like to investigate ways to improve subject specific vocabulary within our learning conversations. Rebecca Jarvis Firstly, this isnt something that you use with every group, every lesson, but is works very well in select activities and helps instil good group behaviour for learning for the times when you dont use it. In Geography I have used it extensively with Year 7 and now include a set of Talk for Learning Rules in the word mats that accompany discussion work. I taught a number of before and after lessons, often with a group of observers and we could really see the difference the T4L rules made. In lively groups it had the calming effect where they took the time to listen to each other and include quite students. They even got good at selfmanaging the event to the point where they pointed out infringements without my assistance. In quite groups the T4L had the effect of encouraging discussion and getting the ball rolling. In all cases it had the effect of making the group work much more focussed on the task, where ALL students took part (instead of the one or two keen ones) and when it came time to feedback, there was a much greater input from a wider group of students (because they had really engaged with the conversations and so had some confidence). Using the T4L meant that I had to listen in much more carefully to their discussions in order to be able to reward them and that meant that I had a much better idea of those star moments that I could share or those common misconceptions that I could deal with. When it came to the pit-stop plenary, the questioning went more smoothly and I was able to dig deeper, because they had more effectively explored the ideas already, instead of thinking off the top of their heads. Finally, I included Word mats for the discussion activities as well as the written activities. I find that students dont have an extensive conversation vocabulary STUFF is a common term so I gave them a vocab list and encouraged them to use it in conversation as well. My best success example is: A group were discussing what the biggest hazard a volcano might offer. The discussion went around lava and ash and one boy was particularly keen that ash was the biggest hazard because it covered such a big area and was unavoidable, whereas you could get out the way of a lava flow. Ash! he said Thats the worst; let write it down. Hang on a minute, said the girl opposite. Lets find something to say a bit more about the ash hazard. The group spent a few moments looking at the photo and the word mat and then the girls exclaimed Suffocating ash, thats much better or we could say smothering ash said another. Whichever words they used, the description of the hazard had now become much more useful. I then saw a much more extensive use of the Word mat in the written word afterwards. I have used it in a similar way with Year 8 and Year 9 with similar success, but in Year 9 I changed the rules to include sets of question strings that I wanted them to get into their conversations to encourage them to interrogate each others ideas instead of passively listening. Now I often use a paper version of the rules now that they are practised and pop up the electronic one once in a while to reinforce the reward element.

Peter Crawley

Talk for Group Work Summary Term 1 - Languages The languages department have been using group talk slightly differently to other subjects in that, for us it is an opportunity for students to talk to each other in French or Spanish, so the focus is never on the actual topic but the language used. In all year groups students are being drip fed a number of useful words and phrases that they can manipulate and use in a discussion about their opinions on any topic. Students have been expected to learn these, two or three phrases at a time in order to use them spontaneously in discussions. These phrases include serious and useful opinion phrases as some sillier phrases like Youre crazy, Youre talking rubbish and Whatever!. Weve found that phrases like this encourage a livelier debate. We are mostly using group talk as a starter activity, providing students with a PowerPoint slide of pictures to inspire discussion (e.g. pictures of sweets / animals / colours / TV programmes). We found that the Talk Factory programme is less useful than these pictures for inspiring discussion. Weve also been using the same structure for speaking assessments. These discussions are recorded on the flip camera at the start of the lesson then played back to the class over the second half of the lesson. This then becomes and AFL activity and students fill in a tally sheet listening out for key words such as adjectives, questions opinions (Ive attached a sheet). Weve found that students have responded really well to the project, all ages and levels of ability are benefitting from spending time using the target language spontaneously and independently. Jill Parker Talk for Group Work Summary Term 1 - PE Term This is a piece of feedback on one of my own lessons, where my learning objective was to encourage/draw out effective student discussions and analytical feedback. I tried this with a year 8 set two Dance group, who were working on two different dance styles, namely; street and contemporary. After teaching the students a set dance phrase from each style they were asked to get into groups of four and to perform their dance phrases to another group. Once a group had performed, I asked the observing group to give them feedback on the following; movement style and aesthetic quality. They were initially asked to use keywords within their analytical feedback such as fluidity, alignment, release and extension/pointing of the toes, breath control and emotion for contemporary style and pop, lock and body roll/body tension, punchy movements and attitude, for the street style. I walked around the groups listening and helping students to draw out the type of conversation I wanted for them to give effective feedback, which would lead to an improvement in the pupils dance performances. After this, I asked for volunteers to give a detailed description of the discussions they had been having in their groups. This gave the whole class an opportunity to hear what each other had been talking about and also led to whole class discussions where I encouraged the students to keep using technical dance terminology and key words. The following lesson, when the students were in a similar feedback situation, it was really encouraging to hear them having the same in-depth discussions that they had been having the week earlier. Debbie Meek

The major long-term outcomes were that all lessons now demonstrate good opportunities for student 'talk'. Each lesson observed offered the class to delve deeper into knowledge and understanding of the topics covered. All teachers questioning was volleyball style as opposed to tennis (one shot). For example 'how can we use agility when outwitting an opponent.' Hands up style first response teacher pauses and glances around the class offering more feedback from the class. Students all seemed to be engaging in the mini then micro conversations. Independent learning kept student engaged and focused on achieving personal targets. Most students displayed a good knowledge of their strengths and areas for development and could give examples of good or outstanding practice linking to levels. Ali Durant. Talk for Group Work Summary Term 1 - Science Group is an essential part of science lessons but is usually focussed on investigations where the opportunity for discussion is largely focussed on findings of the experiment. These usually take a couple of minutes so to set up a system such as the talk factory, or similar, is often thought of as a lot of trouble for only a few minutes of lesson time. This means that our experience is not the same as those of subject areas where group discussion is more necessary. However our experience of using Talk Factory software leads us to conclude that it is a very effective tool in initiating and keeping discussion on track as well encouraging students to use correct vocabulary particularly with regard to scientific terms. To this end we are working to identify activities where group discussions would be supported and enhanced by the use of this package and to share this across the department not only as examples of good practice but also providing the opportunity to assess progress and supporting learning. Clearly this all takes time and it is hoped that in the future meeting and INSET time could be directed to the production of resources either on a subject or cross curricular basis. The value of class discussion supported by the use of Talk Factory is recognised and would like some clarification about the actual mechanics of using the system: Science labs are quite large so discussion groups are spread out which makes it hard to get round the whole class. Not sure how surreptitious you have to be. This raised the question should students see you coming as they change what they are discussing when they see you coming. Similarly how in the background does the program run? Do you make comments well done etc. or just let the program speak for itself and refer to at the end of discussion? Does this work equally well with classes of all abilities and ages if so are there any differences in how you would/should use it? Some other comments from science teachers who have used the system are: Although it could be thought of as making discussions contrived the fact that it encouraged all students to be involved not just those who usually dominate discussions is valuable. It was clear that students were making progress through the sharing of ideas and thoughts. Not always applicable. It is important to choose carefully how and when used - to support this we are looking to identify lessons and episodes when it can be used. These will be written into schemes of work and saved in the shared area so others can access. It can be time-consuming to prepare and set up as the rules need to thought about carefully to ensure they are appropriate, this has limited its use. We usually use images/notes etc. on a presentation to stimulate/promote discussion. Unfortunately this means that other visual learning resources cannot be displayed when TF on is being used. Mixed experience from students, some had used program before but others hadnt, time was spent explaining what was going on but this also gave an opportunity to go through rules for happy and sad faces. I am sure this will be reduced as students become more familiar, perhaps we need to think about wholes school implementation/usage to support this.

David Tointon