listen willya

Tags

2012, 7*, allowing, anxiety, budget, buildings, business, care, communication, consumerism, creativity, David Cameron, education, evaluation, exploration, extension, flag, Have, history, inclusion, innovation, investment, justice, knowledge, learning, lesson, life, listening, love, management, Margaret Thatcher, market, money, nurture, ownership, politics, privatisation, professionalism, prospect, public service, public service cuts, reform, slogans, society, speech, statistics, status, talking, teaching, time, tolerance, Tony Blair, understanding, value-bled education, value-led education, values, vision, wisdom

                                listen willya

                David Cameron, Tony stupid Blair, Margaret bloody Thatcher,
                and all your snivelling Secretaries of Career, and learn this, now –

                                                   don’t go!__
                                business ) education

                you’ve created a RIGHT MESS trying to make it go
                and you’ve spent a QUARTER CENTURY trying to make it go

                trying to work it out with long division, taking everything apart
                to make it go; it just has no value anymore

                nothing has any value anymore, no one cares anymore, we are
                all just anxious; dy’know

                you said KUE* every lesson, I said don’t be so silly,
                I spent five years making it work, I said I’ve made it work

                you said don’t be so silly – it doesn’t influence the statistics;
                I have to go to school now and pretend I’m a professional

                in all sorts of ways to make it look like it goes,
                but it just doesn’t; y’know we’re going to have

                to start all over again if we want anything like education in society again,
                right back to the drawing board; and no history; let’s see –

                                                           _creativity_
                                              nurture ) education

                                               exploration_
                                listening ) education

                                                          _wisdom__
                                              tenure ) education

                           _inclusion_
                vision ) education

                                                                    _innovation_
                                              management ) education

                                                    _extension_
                                exploration ) education

                                 _allowing_
                creativity ) education

                                                            _tolerance_
                                              wisdom ) education

                                                       ___love___
                                              care ) education

                                   _prospect_
                investment ) education

                                        __justice_
                                love ) education

                oh I could go on and on; and – no offence – but stuff your statistics
                and your statuses and your budgets and your slogans

                and your privatisation and your reform, screw them up
                into one huge ball and throw them

                in the bin, and let’s just have some
                honest communication now; you, all of you, went wrong

                as soon as you thought that public service should be value for money,
                (should save money, should make money), but no –

                                               ___don’t go!___
                                business ) public service

                a society that is alive, and rugged, makes money
                to build public service, not own it, to run public service,

                not demand of it, gives service to the public, not a market,
                gives life to society, not just consuming it

                you lot don’t know the first thing about big society, none of you,
                public service should absorb money, it should be

                soaked with money, it should lose money: the only reason
                money should exist is for public service,

                because the service it gives is always far more important
                than a big building and a flag;

                so, stop playing your endless games of balance and measure –
                you’re wasting far too much human –

                and start saying something alive, start doing something truthful;
                c’mon now, you look ridiculous

 

* Knowledge Understanding Evaluation

                                                   don’t go!__
                                business ) education

it might well be that the above format won’t make any sense if you are anywhere under the age of 45: it is the revered and ancient way of setting out division calculations in Mathematics; it ‘reads’, “business [divided into] education [=] don’t go”, where you might more readily have “5 [divided into] 60 [=] 12” … the result appears ‘on top’, leaving the space below to do the working out of long division (“17 [divided into] 43.6299 [=] 2.56646470588”; ‘show your working-out, boy’ thwackk)

I first wrote this in 2012 when there was industrial action over teachers’ pay and conditions – just about the time I started completely losing my emotional marbles at work; I have slightly reconfigured the piece and re-posted it on the day that the NUT is taking industrial action over teachers’ workload, pay and budget cuts: what does the government respond: ‘we are spending more than ever on education’!? … ‘show your working-out, girl’ thwackk!!!

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

anxiety wormhole: what I am about to say is true / what I just said was a lie
buildings wormhole: the policies came to nothing
communication & politics wormhole: B le tch l ey P ark
creativity & life & love & society & teaching & time wormhole: ashramas
education wormhole: the coming of ‘The Boats of Vallisneria’ by Michael J. Redford
evaluation & understanding wormhole: the Apple
Have wormhole: Jericho
history wormhole: currency of generations
justice wormhole: dedication
knowledge wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – introdepthion
learning wormhole: aghh – we’ve been infected / it’s spreading through the system / we’re losing our files … / it’s taken out the processor … / I, I can’t open with this program anymore … / it’s scanning me – / I’ve got to buy a Virus Protection Program / from it …
listening wormhole: plop!
management wormhole: dry rot
money wormhole: tired
professionalism wormhole: dash
speech wormhole: a crack of lightning / in the dark of night
talking wormhole: “Darling” – poewieview #28
value-led education wormhole: Totnes
values wormhole: Dear Sir/Madam,

 

the Apple

Tags

analysis, cognitive, connection, creativity, educational behaviourism, evaluation, feedback, function, growth, knowledge, learning, learning objective, lesson planning, measure, organic education, play, preparation, pupils, questioning, resource, results-led education, task, understanding, value-bled education

 

 

Teaching and learning can ONLY happen organically – when infused, before, during and after, with an understanding of how a mind builds its cognitive structure.   It’s simple: Knowledge >>> Understanding >>> Evaluation (KUE; actually I wonder if ‘Exploration’ is a better word than ‘Evaluation’, less preclusive, more open).   You can teach unorganically, reductively, intensively (as in, farming), results-led (value-bled).   It is much easier to measure (and therefore be used as political manure) like this.   But the learning becomes Pavlovian – set stimulae, set responses to get the grade – pupils are given the knowledge, and they learn (= remember) it, or not.   Pupils are also given the Understanding and the Evaluation/Exploration, and they learn/remember that as well, or not.   They are not taught, as such, but are Educationally Behaved.   Organic education is … the teacher’s apple (look at the shape of the diagram).

 

Preparing: teaching is the unpacking of (already established and recognised) knowledge.   Unpacking happens every lesson, beginning with the identification of the Learning Objective (Learning Horizon) from the curriculum.   Having focussed on the horizon, the map to it is opened-out by the teacher.   The map is the structure/template through which to unpack knowledge – the components of Knowledge, Understanding and Evaluation (KUE) which are the structure and levels of cognitive learning – and this map is the PLANNED lesson.   The way to write the map is to start with the learning objective and ask three sets of questions which deconstruct it into its constituent cognitive components – what are the facts (K), how do they work (U), what are the issues (E)?   The answers to these questions yield the raw ingredients of the lesson.   This level of analysis is conceptual and learned and requires a mastery of the subject in order to achieve it, clearly and efficiently.

Tasking: then comes the creativity in the lesson planning.   Working from the raw ingredients you ask: how could the pupil find, identify, collect, collate etc. the facts of the topic (knowledge), how could the pupil connect the facts together to see how the topic functions (understanding), how might the connections be tested to evaluate the functionality of the topic (evaluation)?   What is different about this stage of questioning is that you are thinking of questions that enable pupils to make the discovery themselves – the creativity is in the enabling, thinking of tasks that let them work the cognitive way back to the learning objective from discovery (of facts features – knowledge) through linking (the knowledge – understanding) to playing (with the links – evaluation).   If the tasks do not allow discovery/linking/playing then they have lost reference to what they were trying to achieve (the Way to the learning objective) and they become directionless and pointless – there is activity, but it is not clear why it is being done even though it may have some related or recognisable association with the learning objective.   The key, therefore, to this stage of lesson planning, is to build not any-old tasks that keep them occupied for a lesson, but tasks which ‘window’ the discovery, ‘thread’ the linking and ‘allow’ the play: growth.   If you ask the right questions in the lesson, the learning will grow itself.   Once you have got the questions right, only then do you think about resources and delivery – a mere formality after the main work of questioning has been done.

Lesson: then comes the magic of the lesson.   The pupil works as far as s/he can through the lesson (K > U > E) and checks their progress through feedback which is phrased in the same KUE references.   The journey is made naturally if the lesson has been constructed right ( // the questions have been posed organically).   There is no chore here (in the sense of work for a deferred or prospective outcome), there is the momentum of: what-is-it, how-does-it-work, let’s-play-with-it?   The learning should develop through stages of integration: having found things (discovery), you see how those things fit together (how they work, function), then you test how they fit together (practise their use if the subject is a skill, develop their use if the subject is a study).   There should be no sense of having to lead-the-horse-to-water, the only thing holding back the pupil will be h/er current cognitive development.*

*There are some pupils with a measured low cognitive ability (i.e. CAT score), or low ability to develop (SEN), who, indeed, are ‘stuck’, lesson after lesson, year after year, because – I would argue – they have inexorable experience of task-for-no-immediately-discernable-gain which emphasises the frustration that their diagnosis identifies.   Organically grown lessons should enable practice, lesson after lesson, year after year, of meeting the limit of their cognitive and learning ability and then pushing that limit a little further, rather than confirming their limit.   In this way their education would truly be a transformative experience of growth rather than a consignment to limitation.

Feedback: after the journey has been made, the product of the lesson is given to the teacher who measures how far the pupil got and puts a level/grade on it.   Every lesson.   Is this onerous?   No, because the breakdown of the lesson by the teacher should be clear and organic enough that the measure of the progress through it will be one of recognition, of mere identification: does it have those facts, does it show the connections between the facts, does it use/test the connections?   The only ‘new ground’ that might be developed in the pupil’s work (and will therefore need more than cursory viewing) will be the higher explorations in evaluation; but these will be new findings, new applications, and the teacher will want to read them in full.   Will the teacher need to give summative and formative analysis for each piece of work?   Once there is a shared assimilation of cognitive development (K > U > E through teaching, K > U > E in learning) between teacher and pupil, borne through lesson-after-lesson, year-after-year of organic experience … no.   Until then, yes, but make it a learning experience: single-word summations, prods, suggestions, questions, directions related directly to the level they have brought their work to and the next step beyond it.   Again, if the cognitive road-map of the lesson has been constructed clearly and organically then the summative and progressive feedback to be given is clear.

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

creativity wwormhole: relapse
evaluation & knowledge & understanding wormhole: Structure & d y n a m i c
learning wormhole: no biggie:
results-led education: what I am about to say is true / what I just said was a lie

 

Structure & d y n a m i c

Tags

assessment, cognitive hierarchy, evaluation, knowledge, learning objective, lesson planning, medium term planning, teaching craft, understanding

The ‘unpacking’ of the Learning Objective needs to be done by applying a cognitive ‘filter’ to the Learning Objective so that its ‘Knowledge’, ‘Understanding’ and ‘Evaluation’ elements are discerned.   If the topic is understood well by the teacher/subject leader, this analysis will be quick and easy – the progression from easy to difficult, from knowledge to evaluation, from level 3/E to 8/A* is coordinated and parallel.   The lesson almost constructs itself – the decisions to be made will be one of resources/access.

This becomes directed learning: in unpacking a topic according to a cognitive hierarchy and providing a roadmap that shows the route of this unpacking, the way for the pupil is clear – to integrate back through the hierarchy with h/er study.   If the presentation of all topics is done according to the same cognitive development hierarchy, what needs to be done for the pupil will always be clear (indeed for higher ability pupils they should become self-directed in their learning, they will be able to work the template themselves).

Assessment for Learning simply becomes the completion of the experience for the pupil – the measure of how far s/he managed to take it.   Self-assessment, peer- assessment and group-assessment are formative assessments, done when there is a pause after the initial impetus of effort has happened (the first ‘go’/’shot’), a check to orient how far the pupil has got and where s/he needs to go.   The teacher-assessment is summative, corroborating what all have commonly understood about development if they have been using the same cognitive hierarchy.

Assessment for Learning means the integration of the lesson/study/assessment through this common cognitive hierarchy – it is the means through which the topic, the lesson and the pupil’s work can communicate; it is the dialectic between the curriculum and the pupil.

The teacher is axiomatic to this dialectic, not just in constructing the lesson and learning (structure), not just in measuring the learning (assessment), but – vitally – in having the instinctive, adaptive, visceral, intuitive human skill to connect it all together (dynamic).   You might have a Medium Term Plan, Lesson Plans and a method of assessment and these might all be present in the classroom as paper, and they might be ostensibly happening in the classroom, but without the Alchemist turning all of this (iron) into gold, you would have an immovable, unchangeable process-led lesson in which minds were not learning.

In recent years teachers have been disempowered from their own art of teaching.   Assessment for Learning should re-instate the integral-ness (the integrity) of the teacher back into the heart of learning, the catalyst/dynamic/alchemy outside the structure that enables the process to actually happen.   Structure just ‘sits there’ without the dynamic to make it work. Targets will just ‘sit there’ without the dynamic to realise them, ’doesn’t matter how much you ‘work’ the structure, ’doesn’t matter how much you treat the teacher as part of the structure.

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

evaluation & teaching craft & understanding wormhole: constructalesson
knowledge wormhole: Dr Strange V – all the words of all the times of all the worlds speak

 

constructalesson

Tags

allmostsome, course, evaluation, knowledge, learning, learning objective, medium term planning, plenary, questioning, starter, syllabus, teaching craft, understanding

 

How do courses start for a teacher?   We have a syllabus or specification which is often little more than a list of topics.   All a medium-term plan should be is a matching of those topics against dates and the curriculum time you have to teach the course, when coursework and exams are, and what overall resources you have to meet them.

The medium-term plan could comprise the ‘menu’ for a course, written in Powerpoint perhaps, it need only have the list of Syllabus Objectives to cover, some dates / lesson-apportioning, assessment tasks if needed and a fundamental layout of the Facts of the Syllabus Objects (the Knowledge), the Concept of the SO (Undertsanding) and the Issue of the SO (Evaluation).   What else would it need other than the actual details of weaving them into individual lessons?   Each Syllabus Objective in the MTP could have a link to its own individual lesson …

… a template which gives the ‘layout’ of a lesson in the form of key ‘construction’ questions which work from the Title/LO/starter >>> ALL-task >>> the MOST-task >>> SOME-task >>> Plenary.   This would supply the whole lesson, constructed from the start to the height develop-able, all on one slide viewable for most of the lesson.   If the purpose of the lesson is clear and stimulating from the Title/LO/starter, and the development of the learning is integrated and mapped out before them, theoretically there is no excuse for the pupil not to WANT to progress through it – unless they are pathological.   Pupils would work through this lesson as fast as they are motivated and as far as they can.   The Title/LO/starter, the ALL-task, the MOST-task, the SOME-task can each have their links to stimulus resources (although I wonder if only the Title/LO/starter would need this if the succeeding questions are clear enough).

So, for the teacher, how do you construct a lesson from scratch?

Why construct it from scratch, why not use the textbook and the questions, why not use the lessons already constructed? Because lessons from textbooks mostly do not, or lessons written before do not necessarily, follow a cognitive development pattern – therefore delivering them can be meandering.   Because even if they are cognitively-constructed their breakdown-analysis has been done by someone else and therefore the way to integrate may be awkward to you – the teacher – to take pupils through it.

Is it from scratch?   No, actually, you would have the ingredients of the LO (from the syllabus/course…) and any resources already owned.   The construction will be purely analytical at this stage.   Take the LO and ask ‘what is it?’.   Write down the answer – this will be the definition, basic or complicated, according to the level of study.   This will also comprise the ‘U’ objective of the lesson.   Then take the definition and break it down by asking the question ‘what are the components/parts of the topic?’.   Note down the components, this will comprise the ‘K’ objective of the lesson.   Then return to the Understanding Objective and ‘open’ it out by testing its definition respectively – improve, what if, solve, devise, revise, expand, rewrite, compose, synthesize, theorise, integrate, project, invent, modify, develop, conclude, critique, judge, weigh, evaluate?   Note down the issue(s).   This will comprise the ‘E’ part of the lesson.

This leaves you with the elements / raw ingredients: the LO, the concept (U), the knowledge (K), the issue (E).   Then you need to plot the way to ‘cook’ the ingredients – put the elements into a provocative, stepped learn.

First you need to provoke the learning: headline the topic, plot their co-ordinates and start the enquiry.   You need to take the title as the ‘window’, as the ‘view’ (within the whole of all knowable things in the universe, or even within the syllabus/subject/course being studied) through which is de-fined the Particular that will be concentrated on for this lesson.   But we still have a large ‘area’ to navigate through, so we need a Title to tell us what it is we are looking at through this window (… telescope?); the LO is the co-ordinate of the topic.   Then we need a starter.   Why do we need a starter?   Because we need to provoke the impetus to find out, provide the motivation to learn.   We need to present a ‘snapshot’ of the topic which shows why it is important (to know about it), a snapshot which shows both the function (K & U) and which opens the conjecture (analysis, evaluation, issues, E) on the topic.   There are various ways this could be achieved – show the end result, use juxtaposition, picture & question, demonstration, theatre, role reaction, video clip …   These elements/raw ingredients are not so distinct as their listing suggests, they work together to introduce the lesson, they are integrated: the opening shot of the film-with-title, the riff and beat of the song, the setting of the joke.   The result of the LO/title/starter is a stimulus to learn: they should leave in the pupil the impetus to want to find out, it should provoke curiosity.

This initial analysis is brief – ‘what is it?’ >>> ‘how can I show it/demonstrate it?’ – and if we know our subject we can ask and answer those questions within a minute.

To recap and then complete:
1: SO (from the syllabus); ask ‘what is it?’, the answer provides the key concept to be understood (U) of the lesson
2: of the concept to be understood (U) ask, ‘what is it called?’ (answer = title, will mostly be the same as the Syllabus Objective), then ‘what does it ‘do’?’ (answer = Learning Objective for the lesson), then show it (U) (= starter).   This is the spine of your lesson.
3: ask of U/LO ‘what are the parts (that work together)?’ (answer = the facts of the lesson), then ‘how are the parts related (connected) to work together?’ (answer = the patterns/arrangement of the facts).   This comprises the Knowledge base (K), the access point to the lesson for pupils
4: ask of U/LO ‘does it work well?’, ‘can (and should) it work alternatively?’; these questions (not their answers) provide the springboard for the evaluative part of the lesson (E)

So the lesson happens – hopefully well, constructively and different pupils of the class having worked through as far as they can, then …

… and especially if the lesson has studied well, have a good, whole-class exploration of …

… responses to provocative questions and ‘what if’s such that EVERY pupil should be able to contribute because they have just studied it

This is how pupils will experience your constructed lesson: the title and LO will locate them, the starter will pique them, the K task will find and then sort the facts, the U task will require them to explain how the facts work, the E task will get them to test if they work well, the Plenary will allow them to sit back and survey the big picture.

Here is a suggestion of a lesson format that could be used for a constructed lesson

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

evaluation & knowledge & learning & teaching craft & understanding wormhole: the Telescope

 

the Telescope

Tags

assessment for learning, evaluation, integration, knowledge, learning, learning objective, lesson planning, questioning, teaching, teaching art, teaching craft, telescope, understanding, unpacking

Unpacking the Telescope

Having ‘sighted’ the Learning Objective, here is where the true magic begins.   The teacher – with all h/er degree course, holistic understanding of the Learning Objective – needs to ‘unpack’ it.   The whole Learning Objective (the topic) needs to be broken down so that the pupil can begin to access it.   A skilled teacher does not wade straight in with the issues and analysis of a topic, s/he will plan the lesson which starts with identifying the topic (knowledge), then showing how it works (understanding) and finally, if a pupil can get that far, nurture analysis or discussion of it (evaluation).   The lesson is the topic unpacked (which takes a high level of discerning analysis on behalf of the teacher, we do need to know our subjects at degree-level).   Teaching is the alchemy of taking the pupils’ minds through the lesson, of making them see, guiding them, allowing them, clueing them in, clueing them through, pointing them to the Bigger Picture of the Learning Objective.   This requires the art of communication – the tricks, foolery, adjustment and dancing which can never be captured in a tick-box sheet of paper.   This is where the power of the teacher lies, not just in producing the lesson (a marvel in itself if well unpacked – and mapped), but in taking the pupil through the lesson (the creative, unmethodical dynamic which is communication).   The ‘telescope’ needs to be opened out in order to see through it.

Looking Through the Telescope

The pupil’s learning – the response to the lesson – is one of finding and then integrating.   Finding straight facts is one level of learning, categorising them is a higher level, linking them together is a higher level, relating them is yet higher, testing them is yet higher still, analysing them still higher, contextualising them from a macro perspective…   Each successive level of learning requires the fitting of what has been already learnt into a wider perspective – integration.   The lazy pupil will be satisfied with the straight facts (the disaffected pupil won’t even get this far); the enquiry of a pupil (or the skill of a teacher) will seek to see how far their knowledge can be taken.   If the way to integrate the knowledge is clear (again the skill of the teacher) learning will develop (not just be ‘received’).   The telescope will be folded back once the view has been seen: knowledge fits into understanding fits into evaluation.

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

evaluation wormhole: tag cloud poem VI – anyone’s eyes
knowledge teaching craft & understanding wormhole: the View: from Here to the Learning Objective to the Learning Horizon
teaching art wormhole: The Future of Teaching: performance or capability (‘oh, not ‘teaching’ then?’)

 

tag cloud poem VI – anyone’s eyes

Tags

1960s, 2014, air, Allen Ginsberg, anxiety, beach, cafe, cars, earrings, earth, east, Eastbourne, eating, echo, economics, Eda, education, educational behaviourism, Edward Hopper, eggs, Eglinton Hill, Eiffel Tower, elastic bands, electric, elipse, elm, Eltham, emergence, Emma Peel, employment, emptiness, empty, endeavour, engine, Enlightenment, ennui, Eternity, Europe, evaluation, evening, evidence, exchange, existence, expectation, experience, exploitation, expression, eyebrow, eyes, faces, growth, Have, identity, journey, landscape, life, looking, pointlessness, school, society, sound, tag cloud poem, teaching, time, war

 

 

 

while earrings twinkle
the earth turns inexorably
east

in all the cafés along Eastbourne front
eating happens with clak but no
echo

economics doesn’t explain it
all said Eda* but I didn’t understand her then or now
despite my education

despite the educational behaviourism
I teach in schools of tomorrow’s children creating
life as treacled as an Edward Hopper

look what happened to Ginsberg’s eggs!
the journey from Eglinton Hill
to the Eiffel Tower took ten years

by elastic band and is still incomplete
because the electric was not current,
but elipse, and no one factored that in

well, just look at the elm which
grows into the ground and
only in Eltham is the emergence apparent

and Emma Peel with a face like a plate
in permanent employment modelling different styles of emptiness
but stuck and empty herself within that very decade

I don’t know: the endeavour should never be
the engine because where would you get off
for the Enlightenment?

ennui the constant air of Eternity
drifting across landscape of Europe despite
scar and plenty

the evaluation has still not been made
no matter how late into evening you wait
the evidence will always peel and flake

the exchange will already look to the next
the existence will writhe on the Utah beaches
to tailor expectation like Emperor’s New Clothes

experience is common but not the denominator
exploitation works best when dressed as expression
with only a wisp of anxiety betrayed by an eyebrow

just look deep into anyone’s eyes

 

*Eda was someone I fell soppily in fatuation with during the first year of university, but I was so naïve I didn’t know what it was and didn’t know what to do with it; I still don’t now

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

air & looking wormhole: on sitting / in front of / a hedge
anxiety & teaching wormhole: what I am about to say is true / what I just said was a lie
beach wormhole: gazing at the night / as my eyes passed the jagged hole / my head disappeared
cars wormhole: cold wind
Eastbourne & Dionne Warwick wormhole: promenade
echo wormhole: 1963
economics wormhole: 20th century
education wormhole: just saying, is all – III
Edward Hopper wormhole: Dr Strange #6-13
Eglinton Hill & evening wormhole: ‘“ruddy crows!” / said my Dad …’
Eiffel Tower wormhole: parc du Champ-de-Mars
emergence wormhole: vagued
emptiness & time wormhole: posture
evaluation wormhole: the View: from Here to the Learning Objective to the Learning Horizon
eyes wormhole: the Buddha head in an antique shop
faces wormhole: titanic
Ginsberg wormhole: multifarious: the Dark Knight Returns (1986)
Have & war wormhole: plethora: the Dark Knight Strikes Again (2002)
identity & life wormhole: letters to Mum I – a walk / and talk
pointlessness wormhole: first a mishap then clear vision
society wormhole: introducing / the stranger
sound wormhole: open window
tag cloud poem wormhole: tag cloud poem V – draft-ness

the View: from Here to the Learning Objective to the Learning Horizon

Tags

cognitive hierarchy, communication, evaluation, hierarchy of learning, knowledge, learning horizon, learning objective, openness, teaching craft, understanding, windows

 

The Learning Objective …

… has got to be simple – simple-enough through which to deliver so that it can be understood, and simple-enough for the pupil to know how to work it and take the learning of it as far as s/he can.   What ‘it’ is, is the Learning Objective.   The Learning Objective is what it says it is: the objective to be learnt – of the great Sea of All Knowable Things in Existence, the Learning Objective is the particular one selected for this particular lesson.   As such it is what is to be achieved, it is the window through which learning will take place, and therefore it needs to remain just the window.   An open window.

It must not have any cognitive qualifiers …

Cognitive qualifiers (such as ‘know’, ‘understand’ or ‘discuss’, ‘appreciate’, ‘be aware of’) have presumed what the pupil will do with it, they have closed down what could be done with it.   Once something is just ‘known’ there is no point in going on to understanding it, once it is just ‘understood’ there is no point going on to evaluate it.   If the Learning Objective contains the qualifier ‘evaluate’ only, this will automatically put it out of reach of the lower ability pupil (or, worse still, it will seem to empower a pupil to evaluate something without understanding what it is); if it contains the qualifier ‘know’ only, it will ‘ceiling’ the attainment of the higher ability pupil.   The Learning Objective needs to be ‘open’ in the sense that it merely indicates what is to be explored, not how it is to be explored.   Any cognitive qualifier would preclude exploration.   In fact, even the word ‘objective’ feels too preclusive, and should only be used to specify what is to be understood.   Perhaps thereafter ‘Learning Horizon’ should be used for the evaluative part of the lesson – that once the ‘objective’ as been reached all that is left is to see what can be done with it … over to you, pupil, see what you can do with it.

Learning Horizons provide a view …

For a view to be functional it needs perspective – the contrast between here and there.   ‘Here’ is where you are, what you know, what you are; ‘there’ is where it is possible to go, what is possible to know, how it is possible to grow.   The contrast between here and there provides the impact of the view – the better the contrast the more the impact because the experience has shown how much more there is (possible) than just here.   It makes you want to go and obtain it from where you currently are.

Learning Objectives (as have been used) access a view alright, but restrict the impact because you have to pay 20p for a minute’s view (and you usually don’t have the exact money anyway), a Title for the work spotlights a feature of the view but provides no perspective, a Starter to the lesson might just focus on the ground, or it might just look at the horizon, but not both, and certainly not the chasm in between.   But put all three working together you have an inspiring view: the impact of here to there (an open Learning Objective), a destination (the Title) and a desire to get there (starter – stimulus – questioning).

So, you have the ground underneath you, you have spied a pathway to it (or maybe a helpful tourist has showed you a map – yes, we teachers are but fellow helpful travellers!!!), off you go!

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

communication wormhole: fractured –
evaluation & knowledge & teaching craft & understanding wormhole: the Hierarchy of Knowing
openness wormhole: the pocket
windows wormhole: on

 

the Hierarchy of Knowing

Tags

applying, Bloom's taxonomy, cognitive, cognitive hierarchy, concepts, empirical, evaluation, facts, knowledge, learning, levels of attainment, questioning, teaching craft, understanding

So why does learning have to happen in a K>U>E way?   (In a relative universe why cannot it happen E>U>K or U>K>E or K>E>U or X>Y>Z?).   The reason is because learning happens (and can only happen) in an integrative way.

Knowledge: is facts, are discerned, are identified, concern levels 3/4 (KSIII), grades G-D (KSIV), grades E-D (KSV).   If you take the simplest piece of learning it is made up of elemental components – pieces of knowledge, facts, things to be recognised.   The starting point of learning is to recognise those basics, to identify them, to discern them.   To identify or discern them you need to be actively ‘looking’, ‘hearing, ‘smelling’, ‘tasting’ or ‘feeling’ for them – you need to be open and ready to ‘get it’, ready to recognise them.   This recognition is the simplest form of cognition – it is empirical (seen, heard, smelt, tasted, touched) and then named.   This is Knowledge (K).

However learning cannot stay at mere recognition otherwise it remains just a functional skill – it has no meaning or purpose.

Understanding I: perceives the function, concerned with how facts are connected, involves level 5 (KSIII), grade C (KSIV), grade C (KSV).   To ‘make sense’ of a fact you need to find how it links with other facts – how they connect, how they work together, how they relate.   When a link has been found, then understanding has been developed (you stand ‘under’ the two, otherwise discreet, facts seeing a link between them that wasn’t perceived before, you have abstracted from the erstwhile discreetness).   With this understanding you can then go on to explain (show) the connection and use or construct the newfound connection…

Understanding II: perceives the contingency of the function, how facts are connected on a more macro level, webbed understanding, systems understanding, involving level 6 (KSIII), grade B (KSIV), grade B (KSV).   This is a higher level cognitive apperception because the link/connection can only be made by this abstraction-from-discreetness which enables perception of structure, process, function in the first place.   You cannot see, hear, smell, taste or touch structure, process, function, you have to cognise it.   To move from factual knowledge to structural understanding you need to abstract from discreet exclusivity.   To abstract from discreet exclusivity you need to think – and here is the work of learning.   You don’t just ‘get it’, you have to ‘work it out’ (and then report how you worked it out in order to have it recognised, assessed).   This is Understanding (U).

Evaluation: involves questioning, developing, operating at level 7+ (KSIII), grade A+ (KSIV), grade A+ (KSV).   Are we finished yet?   No, because you could then question, improve, alternate, innovate, combine, revise, expand, plan, rewrite, extend, pose questions on, synthesize, generalise, propose, theorise, create, integrate, project, invent, rearrange, modify, develop, appraise, conclude, critique, judge, assess, contrast, deduce, weigh, criticise, evaluate those links/connections and find all sorts of ways to advance and exploit that initial abstraction of Understanding.   The connections found between facts are not empirical – they cannot be verifiable simply by looking/seeing etc. again.   They are verifiable through reason, cohesion, concordance, performance etc. etc, which can be challenged and alternated and modified as there is need and context.   As this verification is refined and developed, the application of the idea deepens, in that the initial connection, the initial understanding (‘standing under’), refers to more than the initial referents, it includes alternative referents, it includes related referents, it can even come to include erstwhile un-related referents as the concept deepens.   The concept deepens because of another abstraction: an abstraction which moves from the functional and mechanistic (Understanding) to the considered, reflective, principled, metaphysical.   The concept becomes deeper – expertese and mastery is developed.   The scope of this application is as wide as the sky, the result of this application is a one behind the many.   This is Evaluation (E).

~~~

You cannot have an understanding until you have something to ‘stand under’ – facts.   You cannot evaluate and play with an understanding until you have an initial functional understanding in the first place.   This has significant implications for learning (i.e. you cannot evaluate before you’ve understood, before you have knowledge of; you have to learn K>U>E).   Likewise you have to just recognise Knowledge, you cannot work it out, you cannot conjecture it; you have to work out Understanding, you cannot just see it or receive it (‘get it’); you have to experiment to Evaluate, you cannot just be briefed.   This has significant implications for teaching (i.e. you, as the teacher, have to move from E > broken down to U > broken down to K in order to ‘feed’ it back to pupils through your teaching), (or rather, U >>> breakdown for K (differentiation), and U >>> springboard to E (extension); see ‘constructalesson’, coming to a screen near you … soon; (and the ‘Cone of Knowledge’ which is in pre-production but which will be a blockbuster when it launches!)).

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

evaluation & knowledge & learning wormhole: something simple to offer
teaching craft wormhole: the Lamp

 

something simple to offer

Tags

Bloom's taxonomy, curriculum, educational behaviourism, evaluation, hierarchy of learning, knowledge, learning, levels of attainment, National Curriculum, organic education, results-led education, SATs, understanding

Abstract: Assessment for Learning has become the prime drive in education in recent years.   It has not launched easily because it seems to add yet another exponentially complicating layer onto a pedagogy which has already been excessively fragmented … but if used simply …

National Curriculum spent twenty years making teachers focus on content in order to measure pupils’ levels of attainment of that content.   Nationally.   SATs were implemented in the big three subjects in order to ‘standardise attainment’ and the remaining subjects gradually acquired their own level descriptors in order to keep up.   But the experience with SATs was that they soon became ends in themselves (especially because school performance was attached to them – a wholly un-educational mistake) to the detriment of the means (teaching and learning within a nationalised, uniform curriculum). SATs became grafted – rather Frankenstein-ly – onto all the subjects and their (uniformly burgeoning) curricula.   Descriptors of levels of attainment proliferated as extensively and as randomly as gas.   Confidence in using levels of attainment was never achieved, either in schools (moderation still came down to ‘hunches’ in despair of trying to apply the descriptors in a hierarchy of attainment), let alone nationally (cf. even SATs had to become very blunt measures in order to be comparable).

It was just all too complicated, for both teachers to do anything more than just ‘get through the curriculum’, and for pupils for whom the only constructive course was to indiscriminately ‘try harder’.   Most pupils don’t have a clear sense of how to learn because the content is too overwhelming.   Their un-trained response, at best, is to just include more detail, or make it neater, or at worst to give up – angry and defiant.[1]

Aaagh, what to do?   How to teach something simple-enough and attainable-enough to pupils without exposing ourselves to the charge of un-professionalism? Learning skills or content?   Thematic or integrated?   Do we lurch from one to the other, or just wobble?   Or do we stay where we are, dazed and confused?

Knowledge before (or without) skills is,

• vague (‘where are we going, why are we learning this’)
• unstructured (understanding is developed by association rather than analysis)
• un-measurable (or measurable only by expansion, breadth, detail rather than understanding or analysis)
• un-transferable (skills developed are particular to the subject, or even topic, they were learnt in)
• un-applicable (true enquiry needs to go deeper rather than just more broad)

Skills before (or without) knowledge is,

• pointless (‘where are we going, why are we learning this’)
• wide but superficial (understanding is developed by association rather than analysis)
• only measurable according to the effort made; and its neatness!

Knowledge considered irrespective of Skills, or Skills considered irrespective of Knowledge are un-holistic, lead to un-natural learning and are un-effective[2].

The solution is … Assessment for Learning.[3]   Assessment is the means of identifying progression for any given aspect of an attainment target.   Assessment for Learning is the means whereby the pupil understands what this progression means so that they both know how they have achieved so far and how they can progress further.   For every single Attainment Target (every lesson/learning cycle) we need to present, task, assess and feed-back in a clear level 3-8 way.   In order for us to do this and for pupils to understand (and use) it, it needs to be simple.   Therefore:

Level 3	Knowledge
Level 4
Level 5	Understanding
Level 6
Level 7	Evaluation
Level 8

Level 3-4 you have to know it (detail, facts), level 5-6 you have to explain it (how it works), level 7+ you have to test it. What is ‘it’? It is any given Attainment Target. To break this down a little further:

Level 3	Knowledge	Detail, fact
Level 4		Collections, sorting of details, facts
Level 5	Understanding	Explaining idea behind detail, fact
Level 6		Explaining how ideas fit together
Level 7	Evaluation	Testing ideas for purpose, enquiry
Level 8		Consolidating enquiry

With this simple structure we could take an Attainment Target, any Attainment Target, and we could present it, we could task it levels 3-7, we could assess pupils work on it levels 3-7 and we could feed back to pupils levels 3-7.   What precisely is required for each of levels 3-7 would depend on the respective Attainment Target as exemplar …

Examples >>>			History – Peasant’s Revolt	Geography – Water Cycle	Religious Studies – a Mosque
Level 3	Knowledge	Detail, fact	Key names, places	Key words: rain, clouds, sun etc.	Key words: minaret, quibla etc.
Level 4		Collections, sorting of details, facts	Names & places on a timeline	Key words on a diagram showing cycle	Key words on diagram of Mosque
Level 5	Understanding	Explaining idea behind detail, fact	Causes that made names and places happen	Explain how each element happens	Function of the key features
Level 6		Explaining how ideas fit together	How all the causes came together into PR	Explain how elements work in a cycle	How Mosque practices worship, study, community
Level 7	Evaluation	Testing ideas for purpose, enquiry	Did the PR succeed, what did rebels & leaders say v. do?	Explore where WC is problematic	Mosque as ‘submission’ & ‘peace’, umma
Level 8		Consolidating enquiry	How does PR fit into wider Medieval age?	How WC features on global scale issues	Mosque within Islam

We would need to deliver our lessons with tasks that access the Attainment Target at a level 3-4 level (knowledge – all), at a level 5-6 level (understanding – most) and at a level 7+ level (evaluation – some), so that each pupil can concentrate on the task that corresponds to their target level.   This would de-complicate the curriculum (by making it both presentable by teachers and accessible to pupils) AND develop skills (because pupils would know how to develop from level to level because they are simple and they would be used to them lesson by lesson, rather than give it, at best, their best shot).

Isn’t this all just so familiar? Hasn’t every teacher since the 1960’s had Bloom’s taxonomy wheeled before them, o so very satisfactorily?   It maps the cognitive development from identifying facts (knowledge) to connecting knowledge (understanding), to testing connections (evaluation).   Well, ‘Phew!   That’s a relief – thank goodness Bloom thought about all that complicated stuff – now we can get on and teach!’   I am not sure that the taxonomy has been integrated into lesson-to-lesson teaching, partly because it seems possible to have lessons ‘happen’ without reference to it, partly because it takes time and creative energy to plan the working through of a piece of learning (both of which resources significantly disappear when teachers begin their teaching career), partly, also, because the pervasive drive and focus on ‘results’ (grades) in education has required teachers to condition reactions to learning in their pupils rather than nurture them through cognitive development.

Assessment for Learning should be the very working through of this cognitive hierarchy in each piece of learning: used at the beginning (structured KUE teaching), the middle (integrating K>U>E learning) and the end (formative >>> (occasional) summative KUE assessment).   The result of this will be educated pupils who have developed their intelligence (and know how to learn) rather than educated pupils who have ‘received’ their education as is their due consumer right.

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[1]And this, quite possibly suggests the explanation for why there is a dip in KSIV: the majority of pupils, overwhelmed by KSIII perform flatly at KSIV simply because they are already tired and frustrated at the beginning of year 10 rather than a sense of seeing how far they could take their learning developed at KSIII.   They possibly pick up at KSV simply because they have ‘dropped’ all of the subjects which completely overwhelmed them before, not because they suddenly learn to study better.

[2] (I’m sorry), Aristotle said that the form and essence (of anything) are only notionally conceived of separately, they cannot actually be separate, the same as you cannot think of the shape of the wax of a candle separate from the wax itself.   If the wax is the ‘knowledge’ and the shape is the ‘skills’ (of understanding it), the teaching of one over (or before) the other is non-sensical, or certainly ineffective.

[3] Why hasn’t it worked so far (its been touted for a good 4/5 years to date)?   Simply because it is too complicated: a complicated, 8-levelled system of attainment across many possible skills applied to an often-revised but still complicated curriculum.   The three elements – content, skills and measure – have never ‘plugged’ into each other because there are simply too many ‘pins’ and ‘sockets’ to co-ordinate.   All we have managed to achieve so far are intricate level descriptors for single pieces of assessed work which have become so complicated that you have to be a very clever pupil to follow their progression (even when we have tried to easy-speak them).   They have become complicated in anticipation (we have been required to show how we are meeting Learning Objectives) rather than through use (i.e. ‘Learning’), and therefore they are not useful.

Postscript: this was first written and published around 2007; seven years later OFSTED (and therefore school management) have decided that the ‘way forward’ is to concentrate on differentiation using … Bloom’s taxonomy; we don’t use the words ‘Assessment for Learning’ anymore (I’m not sure anyone but the academics ever got their head around what it meant and because it didn’t produce any demonstrable change in whatever it is we measure as development these days, it was quietly dropped in the clamour of some other technique – learning History, maybe).   But apart from changing reference from Assessment for Learning to something else (which I decided to keep anyway seeing as I spent years getting my head around it; and it works), I didn’t have to edit this at all; we have made that much progress standing still in so many different ways …

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

evaluation & knowledge & understanding wormhole: tiered
learning wormhole: poessay VIII: / educational behaviourism
results-led education wormhole: just saying, is all – III

 

tiered

Tags

2011, evaluation, feet, girl, knowledge, portrait, silence, teaching, toes, understanding

 

 

 

                                              tiered

            the book reference is given
            the lesson is projected on the screen
                      entry-level knowledge
                      consolidating understanding
                      explorative discussion to come
            heads down
                      quiet

            in the front row a slipper has been dropped
                      a foot with neat toes
                      each just shorter
                      than the last
                      stretches
                      down
                      just

                      on
                      c
                      e

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

evaluation & understanding wormhole: listen willya
feet wormhole: swifts test the chasm of sky
knowledge wormhole: poessay III: jijimuge
girl wormhole: out!
silence wormhole: clouds
teaching wormhole: ashramas