24. Pupils are capable of making choices which will help to improve their work.
25. Movement around the room has an important function in this classroom.
26. Pupils need an extra motivational push from time to time.
27. The contract is a plan that can be modified as work progresses.
28. Pupil movement in the room is not restricted.
29. The boundaries can be moved as the contract progresses.
30. Records of projects are kept to be used by other students as a basis for development
of their own project.
31. It is good for pupils to abandon their normal role in school.
32. Pupils want to abandon their normal role in school.
33. Using others in the community is a worth while part of the curriculum.
34. Self evaluation is a worthwhile educational aim.
35. Pupils need help through discussion to carry out evaluation.
36. Pupils can forget or under value the work that they have done.
37. Computers can be used for recording of assessments.
38. Certain skills are important in this classroom.
39. Four statements is enough to provide valid descriptor levels.
40. Negotiated assessments are important and desirable.
41. Teachers will read the words for the poor reader.
42. The teacher can take up non-negotiable stances over certain areas within assessments.
43. Pupils will move onto another contract - they have no choice!
DO THE PUPILS SHARE THESE ASSUMPTIONS ?
4.4.8 The IS Teacher’s Summary of the Skills Required for Negotiation.
The skills which appear to be required in order to carry out successful negotiation were summarised as followed by the teachers in I?:
The IS Teacher's Skill List for Negotiation
■ Using Questions and answers to clarify needs, content and feelings.
■ Listening to both what is said and what is left unsaid. ■ Having patience to allow the other party time to consider. ■ Coping with the silence that waiting for answers brings. ■ Having a wide repertoire of alternative suggestions and ideas. ■ Using praise and encouragement to draw ideas from the pupil. ■ Being able accept and use the ideas of past and present^ pupils. ■ Getting pupils to report on what they have done.
■ Helping pupils over disappointments.
■ Lurking by the pupils... to gain the attention of the teacher. Table 4.23
4.4.9 Some Questions Raised By the Practitioner Observations
In all forms of negotiation questions play the most vital part, on average 22% of the interactions involving the teacher. The pupil, on the other hand, requires to know how to answer those question for this makes up 14% of his interactions. The present schedule only considers four types of question whereas Hunkins (1976) considers that there are at least ten types of question involving both the affectiye and the cognitive domain. Perhaps the teacher should consider widening the range of questioning behaviour that is used in the negotiation process? Related to this must be an unmeasurable quantity, that of listening, which must be vital to the teacher's understanding of what has been
said and perhaps even what has not been said. Coping with the silence which can occur after the posing of a question is another hidden skill. Can teachers cope with this? In this study the longest silence was found to be of seven seconds duration and it was always filled by the teacher. Pupils in another study have noted the differences between teachers and personnel officers where 'teachers would not have allowed the silence but bolstered us up' (Boland 1987) Do teachers have the required skills of asking the right questions at the right time, allowing pupils time to answer and listening to the answers?
A behaviour which both teacher and pupil use in almost equal quantities is that of initiation - proposing new ideas, suggestions qnd action plans. Does the teacher have a sufficiently wide repertoire of alternative suggestions that can develop and improve topics, moving them away from the 'laissez faire' to a process based education, and how can this repertoire be improved? The teacher must also be able to draw out the initiations from the pupil. Using the techniques of positive affective behaviour may well be an area that enables this to occur. Can teachers improve their skills at relieving tension, expressing approval or satisfaction about what pupils do or say?
What are the attitudes of the teacher and the pupil towards the negotiation process? Can they negotiate together or do their personalities make negotiation impossible? The three types of pupil personality which Martin (1976) suggests are important here. The quiet and passive pupil has been noted earlier, but the undisciplined who will not respond to suggestion, has not.
appears to be part of the negotiative strategies employed. Movement may be akin to the ’adjournment’ (Fowler 1986) which occurs in industrial negotiation situations. Here it is suggested that the adjournment gives each side time to reconsider its position and prepare for the next tactical move.
Some pupils have developed well a technique which might be called 'lurking', where the pupil moves to a position close to the teacher whilst the teacher is involved with other pupils and awaits an opportunity to be noticed. Can we teach the quiet unassuming pupils the skills of 'lurking' or other ways of gaining the attention of the teacher?
Repeating and listing seem to be skills which this teacher uses as part of the repertoire of task behaviours. The use of listing may be compared to the periodic summary discussed by Fowler as a means of reviewing progress. The use of the ideas of other students would appear to be an adaptation of the use of hypothetical suggestion - an approach which gets new ideas into the discussion without the different parties taking a stance to defend or oppose the idea.
The physical position of the teacher in relation to the pupil would also be an important strategy in negotiation. In contract planning the teacher sat between or at the side of the students. In working negotiation the teacher and student may well stand, sit close to each other or face each other from opposite sides of the table. In negotiated assessment the teacher will nearly always sit beside the pupil so they can both look at evaluation sheets or the computer screen.
Shared rather than confrontational relationships would appear to exist between the teacher and the pupil in the classroom where negotiated learning is taking place. The type of pupil who is a continuous negotiator (see page 65) makes use of this atmosphere to develop skills and use the processes of negotiated learning.
What of the other pupil types? Are we forcing them into situations where the assumptions made by the teacher conflict greatly with the assumptions which they themselves are making?
Summary of Questions Posed by the Practitioner Observation