Using Interactive Approaches to Teaching Literacy, Language and Numeracy

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• Using Interactive Approaches to Teaching
  Literacy, Language and Numeracy
• Aim
• To enable you to extend your range of group and
  interactive teaching techniques to support your
  learners literacy, language and numeracy skills
  development.

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Outcomes

• By the end of the session you will have
• an understanding of some approaches to
  differentiation and how to use them effectively
• created ideas for interactive group activities
  and effective questioning techniques to use in
  embedded sessions

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Outcomes

• developed a plan for an interactive activity for
  learners in an embedded session
• received feedback that will enable you to use
  interactive approaches effectively.
•  

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What is active learning and why does it work?

• We learn by doing. Research shows that active
  learning is much better recalled, enjoyed and
  understood. Active methods require us to make
  our own meaning, that is, develop our own
  conceptualisations of what we are learning.
  During this process we physically make neural
  connections in our brain, the process we call
  learning. Passive methods such as listening do
  not require us to make these neural connections
  or conceptualisations.
• (Petty 2004)

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Learning retention
Teaching methods and effective learning
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Characteristics of effective active learning

• Challenging goals
• Active learning towards these goals
• Feedback on the extent to which these goals have
  been met
• Constructivist teaching methods

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Constructivism
New learning
Links that create understanding
Existing concepts, knowledge and experience
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Messages from research effect size studies
Teaching or learning strategy Effect size
Direct instruction 0.93
Reciprocal teaching 0.86
Feedback from self-assessment, peer assessment and teacher 0.81
Strategy training for example thinking skills 0.80
Cooperative learning 0.59
Reading 0.58
Mastery learning 0.58

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Blooms Taxonomy

• Developmental tasks e.g.
• Give strengths and weaknesses
• Give arguments for and against
• Suggest improvements
• Design a poster

• Evaluation Harder
• Synthesis
• Analysis
• Application
• Comprehension
• Knowledge Easier

• Mastery tasks for example
• Apply
• State
• Define
• Explain

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Surface and deep learning
Mun falls out of flee. On Saturdays Ted goes
culping. Last Saturday he took God with him. The
mun clizzed and the firz shad. When they arrived,
Ted sulted God. God said, Thank Spult, then
sulted Ted. Eventually they culped until the mun
fell out of the flee.

• Q1. What did Ted do last Saturday?
• Q2. What can you say about the mun and the firz?
• Q3. Do you need to understand the text to answer
  low-level questions?
• Q4. How effective were the muns actions?
• Q5. Why should culping be encouraged?

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Surface and deep learning

• 80 of 12 year olds can correctly divide 225 by
  15. But only 40 can solve the problem
•  
• If a gardener has 225 bulbs to place equally in
  15 flower beds, how many bulbs would be in each
  bed?
•  

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Differentiation

• Differentiation is the process of identifying,
  with each learner, the most effective strategies
  for achieving agreed targets.
• (Weston, 1992)

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Using Blooms Taxonomy to help differentiate and
to achieve deep learning

• a Everyone can learn more but motivation and rate
  of achievement varies.
• b Teachers and instructional style make the
  difference. Consider
• task, outcome, time allowed
• different learning preferences
• individual targets
• feedback.

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Getting interactivity into direct instruction

• Direct instruction is a teacher-centred activity,
  but with an effect size of 0.93 when it is
  carried out well.
• Common characteristics of poor practice
• there is no practice for learners
• there is no feedback
• some learners opt out
• some learners poor concentration.

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Getting interactivity into direct instruction

• Which questioning strategy works best?
• Consider
• participation rate
• teachers feedback
• learners feedback
• learner comfort
• thinking time.

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Reciprocal teaching

• is an interactive, group activity using
  discussion and explanation
• teaches reading comprehension sub-skills
• makes reading strategies explicit
• questioning
• summarising
• clarifying
• predicting
• has an effect size of 0.86.

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Decisions, decisions

• Matching
• Match question and answer
• problem and solution
• technical word and meaning
• parts and their function

Constructivism A theory of learning stressing the role of personal meaning-making

Y 4x - 7 x (y 7) 4
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Decisions, decisions
Grouping Group agree, disagree, dont
know sometimes true, always true, never
true Classify items. Put some spurious cards in
too!
love
run
talk
rat
pen
write
sit
tree
flute
blue
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Decisions, Decisions

• Ranking and sequencing
• Rank by time, order, or by a continuum for
  example.
• Put the cards in time order.
• Rank actions to create a database query.
• Rank by least and most effective, important,
  useful, serious, and so on.

1/4
2/3
21/2
Turn off electricity
Check ABC
Ring 999