If
culture is the personality of an organisation then a quality school is restless,
constantly questioning, never satisfied, challenging norms and believing that
things can always be better.
Learn
to value and respect everyone in school
Learn
both to work on our own and also with others
Learn
to develop our intelligences and talents
Learn
to think clearly to help solve problems
Learn
that only our best is good enough
Learn
that learning never ends
Learn
to live our dream
Learning & Teaching Policy
‘What
the child can do in co-operation today he can do alone tomorrow.’
(Vygotsky
1934).
Learning
Promise
Our
learning Promise will not be achieved without a learning theory to guide our
journey. All children and adults are on the never ending path to be autonomous
learners. Without a “Theory of Learning” learners will not fully understand
the new curriculum. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) allows us to watch learning
take place. Learning is then transformed from the concrete into an abstract
theory of learning.
Learning
Theory
A
"learning theory" is a set of general statements used to explain facts
about learning.
Theories
lead to the discovery of new facts; summarise and interrelate a set of
dissimilar facts & explain facts or observations.
The
Role of learning theories
•
Help
you understand how learners learn
•
Guide
planning
•
Help
in the organisation of learning environments
•
Help
to understand why different learners learn in different ways
The
Constructivist Model of Learning
 | Where learners create their own
knowledge. |
| Where the learner’s knowledge
builds by connecting from new to old. |
Learning
& Teaching in Belvoir
To
promote the autonomous learner in Belvoir.
To
recognise that learners learn from a variety of individuals and groups.
To
implement teaching approaches that support autonomous learning.
To
grow the autonomous learner requires standardisation in planning.
To
plan for Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic learning styles.
To
use thinking skills to learn to think outside the box.
To
evaluate the learning that has taken place.
The
Lead-Learner’s Role in Belvoir
To
develop the learner into a collaborative participant on the learning journey.
To
observe the learners closely both as individuals and in groups.
To
scaffold learning within the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD).
To
match individual and collective curricula to the learners’ needs.
To
create an inquiring environment in school.
To
explicitly develop thinking skills.
To lead learners to the place where
instruction and learning can take place in the zone of proximal
development (ZPD).
To understand that learning occurs in a
place just beyond what the learner can do alone.
To promote learning with the assistance
and support of adults, peers, and the instructional environment.
To develop the goals that allows the
learners to do as much as they can on their own. Then to intervene and provide
assistance when it is required so that the task can be successfully completed.
To strive to engage learners in
challenging tasks, which they can successfully complete with the appropriate
help from significant others.
To promote good teaching through
scaffolding where learning always proceeds from the known to the new.
To scaffold learning through using
appropriate instructional support, processes and language whenever learners
begin to approach a task and developing their abilities to meet the challenge.
To begin from what is near to the
learner's experience and build to what is further from their experience.
To start the learning with tasks that are
concrete, external and visible.
To guide the leaner from concrete
learning to abstract learning.
To develop competence in learners as they
engage in challenging tasks in which they can be successful.
To identify and
build upon strengths
rather than accentuate weaknesses.
To engage learners in real everyday
activities that have purpose and meaning.
To gradually release responsibility to the learner until the task can be completed independently.
Scaffolded learning must develop Multiple
Intelligences to become Smart.
Multiple
Intelligences Learning Activities will be used to support learning in Belvoir.
Visual/Spatial
Intelligence
Charts,
graphs, photography, visual awareness, organisers, visual metaphors, visual
analogies, visual puzzles, 3d experiences, painting, illustrations, story maps,
visualising, sketching, patterning, mind maps, colour, symbols.
Verbal/Linguistic
Intelligence
Stories,
retelling, journals, process writing, reader’s theatre, storytelling, choral
speaking, rehearsed reading, book making, speaking, non-fiction reading,
research, speeches, presentations, listening, reading, read aloud, drama
Bodily
Kinaesthetic Intelligence
Field
trips, activities, creative movement, hands-on experience, physical education,
crafts, drama.
Logical/Mathematical
Intelligence
Problem
solving, tangrams, coding, geometry, measuring, classifying, predicting, logic
games, data collection, serialising, attributes, experimenting, puzzles,
scientific models, money, time, sequencing, critical thinking.
Musical/Rhythmic
Intelligence
Singing,
humming, rhythms, rap, background music, mood appreciation, mood music,
patterns, form, playing instruments.
Intrapersonal
Intelligence
Individual
study, personal goal setting, individual projects, journal/log keeping, personal
response, personal choice, individualised reading, self-esteem activities.
Interpersonal
Intelligence
Co-operative learning, sharing, group work, peer teaching, social awareness,, conflict mediation, discussion, peer editing, cross-age tutoring, social gathering, study group, clubs, brainstorming.
Learners
learning to think in the ZPD
| Learning to organise their thinking. |
| Learning to think about facts and
figures. |
| Learning how feelings and emotions
impact on the thinking process. |
| Learning to be a cautious thinker. |
| Learning to be a positive thinker. |
| Learning to be creative thinker. |
Monitoring
& Evaluating in Belvoir
| Self Evaluating Through Attitude
Questionnaires (SETAQ). |
| Co-ordinators to monitor short term
planners. |
| Key Stage group meetings. |
| Co-ordinators portfolios of work. |
| NFER standardised tests. |
| End of Key Stage levels. |
| Monitoring all available data. |
| Evaluating lessons within PRSD. |
Special
Needs Learning
| Using the 5
stages of the Code of Practice to support learners. |
| SENCO & SEN’s teacher. |
| Using IEPs for learners experiencing
problems. |
| Using IEPs to extend the gifted
learners. |
| Support from outside statutory
agencies within SEELB. |
Other
Support for Learning
| Governors |
| Parents & Carers |
| NSPCC & Barnardo’s |
| Speech & Language Therapists |
| YMCA |
| Youth Service |
| PSNI |
| Health Professionals
|
Appendices
Background Knowledge
Benjamin Bloom
Constructivism
•
All
of the theorists below are Constructivist models.
•
Learners
create their own knowledge.
•
Knowledge
builds by connecting new to old.
Main
Theorists in Learning Theory
Jean
Piaget
We
know that young children cannot think abstractly so learning is optimal when
what is to be learned is only moderately
new.
Your brain organizes learning by making connections
to our existing schemata. Packets of
knowledge about a topic are placed into Mental Filing Cabinets.
Adaptation
takes place when we change our schemata by adding more things to a metal file.
Then
we bring new things into existing structures thereby creating a new file.
Jerome
Bruner
Pupils
must learn how to discover what
they need to know.
Even
young children can grasp the essence of basic ideas, in a simplified way, if it
is presented in an appropriate way.
As
the child’s thinking becomes more mature the ideas can, and should, be
introduced with more complexity.
Learning
through sensory experiences such as images or pictures. It is important to use
concrete experiences not abstractions. Then move from the concrete to the
abstract.
John
Dewey
Learning
by children must be active involving hands-on experiences.
Project
learning must excite interest, emotion, and thought.
The
project's central activity must be intrinsically worthwhile.
The
project must present problems which lead into new questions for the pupil.
The
project must build in adequate time for exploration of new questions.
Lev
Vygotsky
Learning
is social and involves language and interaction
it cannot happen in isolation.
The
zone of proximal development (ZPD)
is the “area” or place where the child can do something with the help
of a more able peer or adult.
David
Ausubel
Teachers
must provide ways for learners to be ready to learn.
Learning
involves linking new information to existing knowledge schemes.
|
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Guess
Who?
|
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Appendices
Models of Teaching and Learning
|
|
One-Sided
Models |
Sociocultural
Model |
|
|
|
Curriculum-centred |
Pupil-Centred |
Teaching/learning
Centred |
|
Historical
Roots |
Skinner,
Pavlov, Thorndike |
Piaget,
Chomsky, Geselle, Rousseau |
Vygotsky,
Rogoff, Bruner, Hillocks, Dewey: Child
and Curriculum Experience and Education |
|
Theoretical
Orientation |
Behaviourism |
Progressivism |
Coconstructivism |
|
How
learning occurs |
Transmission
of knowledge: Teaching is telling |
Acquisition
of knowledge |
Transformation
of participation |
|
Implications
for instruction |
Both
teacher and pupil are passive; curriculum determines the sequence of
timing of instruction. |
Pupils
have biological limits that affect when and how they can learn; teachers
must now ‘push’ pupils beyond the limits. Knowledge is a ‘natural’
product of development. |
All
knowledge is socially and culturally constructed. What and how the pupil
learns depends on what opportunities the teacher/parent provides. Learning
is not ‘natural’ but depends on interactions with more expert others. |
|
Pupil’s
role |
‘Empty
vessel’ |
Active
constructor |
Collaborative
participant |
|
Teacher’s
role |
Transmit
the curriculum |
Create
the environment in which individual learner can develop in set
stages-implies single and natural course |
Observe
learners closely, as individuals and groups. Scaffold learning within the
zone of proximal development, match individual and collective curricula to
learners’ needs. Create inquiry environment. |
|
Dominant
instructional activities |
Teacher
lectures; pupils memorise material for tests |
Pupil-selected
reading, pupil-selected projects, discovery learning |
Teacher-guided
participation in both small-and large-group work; recording and analysing
individual pupil progress; explicit assistance to reach higher levels of
competence |
|
Who
is responsible if pupil does not progress? |
The
pupil: He can’t keep up with the curriculum sequence and pace of lessons
or meet the demands of prescriptive school program. |
The
pupil: He has a ‘developmental delay’, a disability, or is not
‘ready’ for the school’s program. Often, family or social conditions
are at fault. |
The
more capable others: They have not observed the learner closely,
problem-solved the learner’s difficulty, matched instruction to the
learner, made ‘informed’ decisions, or helped the learner ‘get
ready’. |
|
When
you assign
a task and the pupils successfully complete it without help, they could
already do it. They have been taught nothing. |
The
place where instruction and learning can
take place is the zone of proximal development (ZPD). Learning occurs region,
which lies just beyond what the child can do alone. Anything that the child can
learn with the assistance and support of a teacher, peers, and the instructional
environment is said to lie within the ZPD.
If
you've taught books that are at many of your pupils’ frustrational level,
then you know that teaching them lies in the teacher's frustrational level as
well!
|
Vygotsky
viewed teaching as leading
development, instead of responding to it, if teaching is in the ZPD. |
Texts at
the independent level are those the pupil can read alone (and are therefore in
the ZAD).
Texts at
the instructional level are those that pupils can read with help, and through
which pupils will learn new content and new procedures of reading (because the
demands of reading that book lie in the ZPD – they can be learned with the
appropriate assistance).
These
are the kinds of texts pupils need to be reading. They must be carefully chosen
and matched to pupils, and they must be accompanied with instructional
assistance for developing strategies of reading.
The goal
is to allow the pupils to do as much as they can on their own, and then to
intervene and provide assistance when it is needed so that the task can be
successfully completed.
Vygotsky
stressed that pupils need to engage in challenging tasks that they can
successfully complete with appropriate help.
Happily,
Vygotsky points out that teaching in such a way develops the teacher just as
attentive parenting matures the parent.
|
Learning
always proceeds from the known to the new. |
A
metaphor that has been used to describe this kind of teaching is ‘scaffolding’.
The
construction starts from the ground up, on the foundation of what is already
known and can be done.
The new
is built on top of the known.
The
scaffold is the environment the teacher creates, the instructional support, and
the processes and language that are lent to the pupil in the context of
approaching a task and developing the abilities to meet it.
Scaffolding
must begin from what is near to the pupil's experience and build to what is
further from their experience.
Likewise,
at the beginning of a new task, the scaffolding should be concrete, external,
and visible.
Vygotskian
theory shows that learning proceeds from the concrete to the abstract.
This is
why math skills are learned from manipulatives, and fractions from pies and
graphs.
Eventually
these concrete and external models can be internalised and used for abstract
thought.
One of
the problems with reading is that the processes are internal, hidden, and
abstract.
There
are many strategies (protocols, drama and visualisation strategies, symbolic
story representation) for making hidden processes external, visible, and
available to pupils so that they can be scaffolded to use and master new
strategies of reading.
|
Pupils
have a need to develop and exhibit competence. Teachers must assist them
to develop competence as they engage in challenging tasks in which they
can be successful. |
Vygotskian
theorists stress that children need to engage in tasks with which they can be
successful with the assistance provided.
They
also stress that the child needs to have strengths identified and built upon (in
contrast with the deficit model of teaching, in which a pupil's weaknesses are
identified and remediated), and requires individual attention from the teacher.
Context
and situation are also essential and integral to all learning.
So
pupils need to be engaged in real everyday activities that have purpose and
meaning.
|
A
meaningful learning context is crucial. Learning is purposeful and
situated. |
It is
important that the teacher gradually releases responsibility to the pupil until
the task can be completed independently.
|
Learners
can only begin to learn within their individual zones of proximal
development, current interests and present state of being. But
humane teaching can develop new interests, new ways, of doing things, and
new states of being. |
Vygotsky
wrote, ‘What the child can do in cooperation today he can do alone tomorrow’
(1934). He also noted that ‘instruction is good only when it proceeds ahead of
development. It then awakens and rouses to life those functions which are in a
state of maturing, which lie in the zone of proximal development. It is in this
way that instruction plays an extremely important role in development’ (1956).
It's
worth mentioning that Vygotsky stressed the importance of playfulness and
imaginary play to learning.
In our
own schools, there's an amazing split between teachers who believe that learning
should be fun, and those who believe that learning should be hard work.
Our
interpretation of Vygotsky is that he would agree with both parties (though
primarily with the first group): we think he'd maintain that teaching and
learning should be play that does ‘WORK’, by which we mean that the learning
will have an immediate application, function, and real-world use.
Edward
de Bono’s
Six
Thinking Hats
1. White Hat:
o
Think of white paper, which is neutral and carries information.
o
The white hat has to do with data and information.
o
What information do we have here?
o
What information is missing?
o
What information would we like to have?
o
How are we going to get the information?
2. Red Hat:
o
Think of red and fire and warm.
o
The red hat has to do with feelings, intuition, hunches, and
emotions.
o
Some put forward emotions but disguise them as logic.
o
The red hat gives people permission to put forward their
feelings and intuitions without any need to justify them.
o
Put on my red hat and say what I feel about the project.
o
My gut-feeling is that it will not work.
o
I don’t like the way this is being done.
o
My intuition tells me that that it is wrong direction.
3. Black Hat:
o
The black hat is the "caution" hat.
