Perhaps the single most signifi cant development over the years regarding academic work has been the growing use of learning activities based on the use of information and communications technology (ICT). ICT-based learning activities include:
blended learning:
Ɂ combining the use of ICT activities with face-to-face non-ICT activities
e-learning:
Ɂ the use of online technologies such as blogs, email, discussion boards computer-assisted learning:
Ɂ the use of computer-based software packages designed to aid learning
learning platforms:
Ɂ a collection of web-based ICT resources and interactive discussion forums
the virtual learning environment (VLE):
Ɂ pupil and teacher access to software systems
that support learning, which are brought together in a way that enables teachers to monitor and track pupils’ engagement.
This growth has led to many exciting developments (Leask and Pachler, 2005; Wheeler, 2005). ICT-based teaching is expected to be used across the whole curriculum. Schools are expected to foster a wide range of pupils’ skills in the use of ICT and to use ICT to enhance the quality of pupils’ learning within subjects.
ICT-based activities present schools with three challenges:
Financial, organisational and logistical.
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The need for teachers to develop suffi cient expertise in using ICT.
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Using ICT to enhance the quality of pupils’ learning experiences.
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Research on aspects of this third challenge regarding the quality of pupils’ learning experience has highlighted that there are two levels of ICT use in the classroom. The fi rst level deals with the stimulating aspects of using ICT. Pupils often report that they enjoy using ICT, they become more engaged in the work, and their motivation for learning increases. The second level deals with the genuine increase in the quality of pupils’ learning by enabling their knowledge and understanding of the topic in hand to be enhanced through the use of ICT.
Whilst the ‘fi rst-level use’ of ICT is important and benefi cial, particularly in terms of the motivational value that using ICT can provide to pupils who might otherwise be disaffected or disinterested in the work, it is only when ‘second-level use’ takes place that we can say that the effectiveness of the teaching and learning has been enhanced by the use of ICT to promote higher quality pupil learning. For example, numerous evaluation reports and guides for schools illustrate how developments in the use of ICT have provided a host of new ways in which teachers can scaffold pupils’ learning and promote new forums within which high quality pupil–pupil dialogue can occur (e.g. Becta, 2007, 2008). In many lessons, however, pupils and teachers have only developed suffi cient expertise in the use of ICT for the work to remain at the fi rst level. It can take quite some time for pupils and teachers to develop the necessary skills and understanding in the use of ICT for second-level use to take place, but when this is achieved, the progress and insights that it offers can be substantial, and sometimes unique (in the sense that it is hard to see how the particular type of deeper understand-ing by pupils of the topic gained by usunderstand-ing ICT could have occurred usunderstand-ing any other type of teaching method).
SETTINGUPTHELEARNINGEXPERIENCE 55
Summary
Discussion questions
What are the relative strengths and weaknesses of expository teaching versus small 1
group work activities?
What qualities are involved in the effective use of questioning by teachers?
2
In what circumstances is experiential learning particularly useful?
3
How can ICT-based learning activities be used to best effect?
4
How might the teacher’s choice of learning activities be infl uenced by the intended 5
learning outcomes?
What role does teacher feedback play in the use of different types of learning activities?
6
Further reading
Hayes, D. (2006). Inspiring Primary Teaching: Insights into Excellent Primary Practice.
Exeter: Learning Matters. An excellent analysis of the key features involved in setting up effective learning activities the primary school classroom.
Muijs, D. and Reynolds, D. (2005). Effective Teaching: Evidence and Practice, 2nd edn. London: Sage. An overview of the key factors and issues involved in promoting learning.
Myhill, D., Jones, S. and Hopper, R. (2006). Talking, Listening and Learning: Effective Talk in the Primary Classroom. Maidenhead: Open University Press. An excellent analysis of the way language is used to promote learning, with a focus on the primary school classroom.
Watkins, C., Carnell, E. and Lodge, C. (2007). Effective Learning in Classrooms. Lon-don: Paul Chapman. Looks at ways of promoting effective learning by focusing on classroom activities that provide for greater pupil involvement and engagement.
Wilen, W., Hutchinson, J. and Ishler, M. (2008). Dynamics of Effective Secondary Teaching, 6th edn. New York: Pearson. Presents a detailed overview of the key instruc-tional techniques and the factors that infl uence their effective use.
In this chapter the diversity of the learning tasks, activities and experiences that a teacher can set up to facilitate learning have been considered. While a number of distinct categories have been used to make this diversity clear, in practice effective teaching involves a complex combination of such tasks, activities and experiences.
Effective teaching involves a number of skills concerned with the planning and organisation of such tasks and their presentation, and with matching the tasks to the educational outcomes the teacher wishes to foster. Much of the discussion of effective teaching in the past has relied heavily on an image of teaching that is tra-ditional both in terms of the teaching style it implied (expository teaching) and in the educational outcomes it focused upon (performance on attainment tests). If there is one thing that characterises schools nowadays, it is the greater diversity of teaching activities that are adopted, ranging from computer-assisted learning to role play. Our thinking about effective teaching needs to keep pace with such changes in the character and nature of learning.
Objective
There are a large number of differences between pupils and between groups of pupils that may infl uence teaching and learning (Arthur et al., 2006; Ellis, 2007; Jacques and Hyland, 2007). Many of these sustain books in their own right. This chapter, however, will focus on the six major pupil differences that warrant particular attention: ability, motivation, social class, gender, race and special educational needs.
Taking account of pupil differences is a key factor in thinking about effective teaching.
It enables the teacher to be more sensitive to the context of the educational experience to be set up and the issues involved in ensuring that this experience will facilitate the desired learning by a particular group of pupils. Essentially, the same message occurs from each pupil difference considered: that teachers need to carefully monitor the match between the teaching and the pupils being taught. The skills involved in getting this match right, and the implications for the teaching methods and processes adopted, will almost certainly benefi t all pupils, not just the specifi c individual or group being considered. For example, in considering how best to sustain the interest of gifted children, it becomes evident that the strategies and considerations involved are relevant to sustaining the interests of all children. Each of the six major pupil differences that will be considered in this chapter in effect thus serves to raise a number of agenda items about teaching and learning that carry with them similar implications, although the details of the prescriptions that emerge will be different. This similarity of implica-tions is perhaps not surprising, given that the categories of pupil differences commonly identifi ed as important are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, such categories overlap to a considerable extent, as for example in the case of ‘ability’ and ‘social class’, which will be discussed later. In looking at pupil differences, the central message invariably says something about all pupils and about each pupil. This point needs to be borne in mind throughout the chapter.
Ability
The 1944 Education Act stated as a legal requirement that all children should receive an education related to their ‘age, ability and aptitude’. While the need to take account of age is currently refl ected in the widespread grouping of pupils into single-year-span classes (although not exclusively so), ability and aptitude are currently the subject of