Encouraging reflection upon learning

In addition, pupils were encouraged to actively consider the learning process by making the focus for each lesson explicit. This was achieved by using the learning objective for each lesson as the title recorded by pupils in their Maths books. At first, these titles were given by me. I would explain the learning for each lesson to the pupils, modelling thinking about the learning we would undertake (or had undertaken – as it was often simpler to encourage pupils to reflect upon what they had learned during each lesson after they had completed it and could more easily recognise what this looked like). Furthermore, whilst West Side School policy specified the use of titles beginning ‘I can’, Year 5 pupils instead used titles beginning ‘I am learning to’. Thus a typical title may read ‘I am learning to find

percentages of amounts’ or ‘I am learning to solve word problems involving measurement’. I believe this was important because, semantically, whilst ‘I can’ suggests that pupils have already achieved a particular learning focus, possibly leading to a sense of failure if pupils then find this challenging, ‘I am learning to’ focuses pupils on the learning process, perhaps making them aware of the steps they undertake to improve their understanding.

As pupils became more aware of the planned nature of learning objectives, we began to create titles together as a class. At the beginning of the lesson – once I had explained the task or focus for the lesson - we would discuss what the children thought the learning focus was, and would use this to create a shared title. An example of one such title can be seen in Plate 2.8, followed by a list of learning outcomes – determined by each individual or group of pupils – for that particular lesson.

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Plate 2.8 An ‘I am learning to…’ title, discussed and developed with the focus cohort

This shared understanding of the learning focus and intended outcomes was important as it links to the conditions that Hattie and Timperley (2007) consider essential to effective feedback, explaining that ‘goals without clarity as to when and how a student (and teacher) would know they were successful are often too vague to serve the purpose of enhancing learning’ (p. 88). During more complex lessons, pupils were also asked to do this

retrospectively, recording a title of ‘I have been learning to:’ at the beginning of the lesson, and then returning to this during the plenary at the end of the lesson, when pupils were given the opportunity to discuss their learning and record a list of skills they had developed, or knowledge that they had gained in the course of the lesson.

In addition, children were engaged more actively in self-assessment of both individual tasks and progress in their learning. Wherever possible, children self- or peer-marked work during lessons. This was achieved through a range of strategies including the use of calculators, ‘answer sheets’, peer-evaluation, and class discussions. This was instrumental in continuing to move emphasis away from ‘answers’ and towards progress in learning, and the corresponding shift from a goal-orientation mind-set, towards a focus on the

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a new marking code was developed and shared with the pupils to ensure clarity of understanding. This was crucial, particularly in light of Hattie and Timperley’s (2007) highly sensible suggestion that feedback can only impact positively if it is fully understood by pupils, and if they recognise its importance, encouraging active engagement with it. This marking code was stuck into pupils’ exercise books, ensuring that it could be referred to as needed. A copy can be found in Plate 2.9.

Plate 2.9 The marking code for Maths at West Side School

Hattie and Timperley (2007) maintain that feedback has the ‘greatest effect when a learner expects a response to be correct and it turns out to be wrong’ (p. 95). Indeed, Hattie

believes that tolerating pupil errors is one of the key characteristics in creating ‘optimal classroom climates for learning’, explaining that this creates an environment where pupil ‘error is welcomed, where student questioning is high, where engagement is the norm, and where students can gain reputations as effective learners’ (both 2003: p. 7). As a result, where children had made an error, they were required to repeat their working using a different coloured pen to identify and address mistakes. Children thus gained immediate feedback on their learning, and were able to address any misconceptions rather than risking these being ingrained and ‘learned’ through repeated application of incorrect methods, either by identifying for themselves the source of any difficulty, or by appealing to a peer or teacher, thus developing their understanding.

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I believe that this feedback – provided both by me, resources, and, crucially, the pupils themselves - was instrumental in encouraging my pupils to become more independent learners. Certainly, Hattie and Timperley (2007) believe that feedback of this nature allows pupils to ‘develop effective error detection skills, which lead to their own self-feedback aimed at reaching a goal. Such error detection can be very powerful, provided students have some modicum of knowledge and understanding about the task on which to strategize and regulate’ (p. 86). To further this, I also strongly encouraged pupils to provide verbal or written explanations to clarify why mistakes had been made, allowing both myself and my pupils considerable insight into their understanding of their work as well as progress in understanding. An example of this can be seen in Plate 2.10.

Plate 2.10 A pupils’ explanation of why his first answer was incorrect

Pupils were further encouraged to reflect upon lessons by writing a comment upon their learning at the end of each lesson. Whilst this often consisted solely of a rather brief comment such as “I made progress today”, some pupils - such as Harry9, a boy in Class 2 - demonstrated deeper reflection, commenting on the strategies and mathematical methods which helped them achieve their learning objective. Such comments include “I now understand how to use my protractor accurately because I was measuring the wrong way and my protractor had different angles measured” and “I feel working as a team and

9 _{Please note that the names Harry and Grace are both pseudonyms, used to preserve the anonymity of the}

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learning things on the carpet helped me learn today”. An example of a comment of this type can be seen in Plate 2.11.

Plate 2.11 A pupil’s reflection upon learning

Initially, pupils found it challenging to understand exactly what type of reflections upon their learning I expected. I believe that this was largely because their previous reflections upon their learning were typically very simplistic – describing learning as either ‘easy’ or ‘hard’, and often even both! – and they thus had limited experience of analysing what they had learned, how they had learned it, and the progress that they had made. It was therefore important to dedicate a specific portion of lesson time (the 8 – 10 minutes of the plenary element of Thinking Skills lessons outlined in Table 2.3 above) to discussing this as a class in order to model thinking of this nature, share ideas, and to develop pupils’ understanding of just how to reflect effectively upon a lesson. The comments that pupils ultimately recorded were extremely interesting as they indicated - as was logically to be expected -

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that some children reflected in notably greater depth than their peers, therefore raising the question of whether these pupils were also more significantly affected in other areas of interest, such as attainment, progress and self-concept relating to Maths. Consequently, I resolved to study these cases more closely; the case-studies of both Harry and Grace, also from Class 2, are therefore included as part of the Findings chapter of this thesis.

Again, these reflections were given in a different pen to that they customarily used during Maths lessons. I decided to give children a red pen to use specifically for thinking of this type in an attempt to emphasise to children that these reflections were distinct from children’s ordinary work in Maths, and that I was expecting something rather different to be written using this pen. This choice was made, in part, because, whilst teachers at West Side School mark in a green pen, children’s work in Maths books is completed in pencil. By giving pupils a pen, I hoped to symbolically transfer power from the adults within school to the pupils themselves, helping them to understand that they were being given shared responsibility for developing their learning through reflecting upon their work, identifying and correcting errors, as well as identifying avenues and strategies for future improvement. The use of a pen was also useful because it helped my year group partner and I and the pupils to distinguish between initial and subsequent ideas: it made progress in understanding more visible, therefore helping pupils to recognise their learning and how this developed throughout the course of individual lessons and larger blocks of learning.

Thus, through the increased focus upon problem-solving and open-ended tasks, as well as greater emphasis upon pupil talk and collaboration, questioning, and reflections upon learning, the introduction of the Thinking Skills methods were designed to influence the development of pupils’ awareness of themselves as learners of Maths; their opinions and self-concept; as well as their progress and attainment in the subject. Consequently, this intervention was both the direct result – in terms of the strategies adopted and the manner in which they were introduced to the classroom – of the existing literature surrounding

Thinking Skills, and an extension of the current body of research in this field – in terms of my aim of pinning down in a more tangible, reliable form, the impact of a Thinking Skills approach upon those measures which must, in our current results-driven education system, be of great significance to practitioners such as myself – progress and attainment. The

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following chapter of this thesis will give further information regarding the methods used to record and analyze the impact of the Thinking Skills approach within my own classroom.

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