Independent Learning

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Independent Learning

• CPD session 9.10.08

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(No Transcript)
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Outline

• Developing thinking
• Developing learning
• Emotional Intelligence
• Some strategies

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Developing thinking

• The brain is complex, so teaching students to
  maximize their thinking potential is not
  straightforward
• So obsessed with what that we forget how
• What would they learn from it?

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Life Experiences

• Main influence
• 5-16 years half the waking hours of pupils are
  spent in school
• Opportunity to shape
• Patterns of behaviour
• Ways of learning
• Thinking for life

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Learning Environment

• Childrens minds respond to the learning
  environment created by peers and teachers
• Teachers views of learning (and therefore,
  thinking), are implicit in the way they choose to
  organise their classroom
• A. Craft (2000)

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John Dewey

• All the school can or need do for pupils, so far
  as their minds are concerned, is to develop their
  ability to think
• (John Dewey, How we think, 1910)

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Lessons that teach thinking skills well

• Have open and challenging tasks that make pupils
  think hard
• Encourage pupils to use what they already know
• Offer opportunities to work in collaborative
  groups
• Encourage pupils to talk about how tasks have
  been done
• Produce learning outcomes at different levels
  e.g. some relating to subject content, others on
  key skills and using the learning in other
  contexts

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Developing Learning

• Government has extolled lifelong learning,
  which requires people to be independent thinkers

I find that whilst many 6th formers appear happy
to work independently they generally have poorly
developed research skills. Many seem to think
that this consists of being directed to a
resource and either cutting and pasting or
re-writing information without any actual
analysis or evaluation of either the source or
content. In fact many appear to believe that it
is the teachers job to provide any all
analysis for them and simply tell them what they
need to write in their coursework/exam.
Steve Adams
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Developing Learning

• When a teacher says Lets think about this
  what response are they expecting?
• The right answer?
• An insight into a pupils misconceptions?
• Very few will expect an unprompted I think
  thatbecauseand actually this reminds me of
  type of response

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Developing Learning

• Through primary and secondary school pupils come
  to understand, through experience and reflection,
  that teachers expect very different kinds of
  thinking and mean quite different things when
  they say think about it.

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Emotional Intelligence

• the leap from mere learning to using what one
  has learned in thinking is an essential step in
  the use of the mind
• (J.S.Bruner 1996)
• Thinking about your thinking is important
• Emotional Intelligence

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EQ matters more than IQ

• Emotional Intelligence is a master aptitude that
  profoundly affects all other abilities (Daniel
  Goleman 1996)
• Emotional Intelligence is knowing and
  understanding yourself well and having ways of
  thinking that make you self-confident and good at
  forming your relationships with others
• By developing your Emotional Intelligence you
  will be both happy and successful at whatever you
  do.

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Truth

• Emotional intelligence (EQ) is a more important
  predictor of success than IQ
• There are many baseline tests based on IQ
• Some students will still lack motivation and not
  develop their potential because they lack the
  crucial emotional intelligence that is the real
  key in successful learning
• Apparent when they have acquired simply the
  skills of a photo-copier (See S. Adams comments
  above!)

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Goleman

• Begins by asking the question, What can we
  change that will help our children fare better in
  life?
• Debate about how we can develop intelligence and
  help our children become motivated independent
  learners balances on our readiness to accept a
  truth long accepted by employers and the business
  community

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What is Emotional Intelligence?

• The questions below illustrate some crucial
  questions about the way we all handle ourselves
  and our emotions on a daily basis
• What do you do when you dont know what to do?
• What do you do when you feel unhappy?
• How do you react when someone criticises you?

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What is Emotional Intelligence?

• How do you feel when you fail?
• How do you make yourself stick to your promises?
• What makes you get up in a morning?
• How do you feel when someone else is successful?
• Do you treat others the way you like to be
  treated?

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Emotional Intelligence

• Being happy is not something to be left to chance
• Self motivation is not a quirk of our genes (e.g.
  internet!)
• Being a quick and confident learner isnt only
  the domain of clever students
• All of these things can be developed and taught
  to young people
• Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL)

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OH, NO, DOES THIS MEAN..?

• Not touchy-feely, happy-clappy!
• There is a clear educational and economic benefit
  in having young people and adults who know how to
  be
• Confident
• Capable
• Happy
• Both as learners and as human beings!

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Isnt that a bit over the top?

• UK has one of the highest rates of self harm in
  Europe
• Estimates vary, but research suggests that 20 of
  children have a mental health problem in any
  given year
• By 2020 depression will be the second largest
  killer after heart disease
• Depression, stress or anxiety accounts for an
  estimated 10.5 million reported lost working days
  per year in Britain

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Vision

• If we want young people
• to become happy and effective adults who can
  make and sustain meaningful relationships
• who can deal with change, failure and success
• who can motivate themselves from the inside
• who can learn, forget what theyve learned
  because its all changed and then re-learn
• who aspire to be all they can be (and be happy
  with what they are regardless)
• Then we must send them away from us with the
  skills and competence to achieve all this.

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What is this to do with us?

• Maybe the alarm bells should be ringing in an
  academically successful school where children
  leave with a raft of top-notch grades?
• Clinical psychologist Oliver James claims there
  are studies that show that it is high-achieving
  girls who are especially at risk from the effects
  of low self-esteem and its consequent effects

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What is this to do with us?

• Recent brain research about the need for positive
  emotions for effective learning backs up what
  Plato told us over 2,000 years ago
• All learning has an emotional base

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The future

• Having emotionally intelligent and balanced
  children is one thing
• Not enough to prepare them for the speed of
  change and scale of challenge they will face
  beyond school

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The World is Flat Thomas Friedman

• The more we push out the boundaries of knowledge
  and technology. the more those with the ability
  to learn how to learn, will be in demand

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The future

• The days of spoon-feeding for exam results have
  got to be numbered if we, in education, are going
  to do the job that society needs us to do!

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The future

• Nuffield Review (universities report) 2006
• Learners who may have achieved academic
  success at A Levelstruggle to cope with the more
  independent and self-directed style of learning
  expected by higher education tutors.
• The report goes on to point out that
• valuable time is lost at the beginning of HE
  courses developing independent learning skills
  that should have been developed already.

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The future

• Its not even a question of, Well, how do you do
  all this?
• Rather its, How come you havent started yet?
• Resources goldmine of hundreds of simple and
  enjoyable ideas and exercises
• Effect they have when delivered well may have
  repercussions far beyond the classroom and into
  the future

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Wouldnt it be good?

• I can
• This reminds me of
• What I would like to know is
• I would like to look at
• I found this out and, especially
• Ive really enjoyed this topic! and
• Ive really enjoyed teaching this!

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