I was very struck very strongly by principle 1.
I was very struck very strongly by principle 1. I tend to be a bit of a discursive teacher and I enjoy chatting with my students, bringing up current events, or joking around a bit. I think too often I assume that if they are using English, they are learning, right? So I do need to be careful about using class time efficiently since learning time is such a small part of the whole day. I had never really thought about that before.
The other thing that struck me was about differentiating students in the class. I suppose I have always looked at the problem of multiple levels as: my job is to bring the lower level students up to the level of the more advanced students. I think to some extent this has been beneficial. I often try to get students who are good at learning vocabulary to share their methods with those who are less successful for example, or ask students who love grammar to share their understanding with others, becoming mini-mentors.
However, when Penny discussed the second principle, I had a bit of a paradigm shift. In fact, isn't the goal of the teacher to help every one get something out of the lesson. I love the idea of letting each student work as many questions as they want, or do the ones they are confident in (And I wonder if it might be worthwhile to say, "Do 3 questions you think you know well, and then try one you are less confident about," and get them to push themselves a bit). I think in my old mindset, I ran the risk of either neglecting the learning of the advanced students or forgetting that even though a student can be overall advanced, there are often gaps in their learning. And occasionally a lower-level student will be quite good at some fairly advanced skill or know a set of complicated vocabulary.
So rather than looking at students holistically as "advanced" or "lower level", it's nice to let them approach each lesson afresh and perhaps it will be one of the more advanced students that struggles to finish all the questions in Exercise C. Thinking off the cuff, that might mean that in some cases, a so-called lower level student would become the mentor, explaining their answers to that exercise. Which I imagine would be quite good for their confidence.
I am quite interested in this notion of using the same material for different levels. As a materials writer, it's one of the biggest challenges, writing for all classroom situations (because you can't), so I hope to learn more about differentiation with the same activity.
The other thing that struck me was about differentiating students in the class. I suppose I have always looked at the problem of multiple levels as: my job is to bring the lower level students up to the level of the more advanced students. I think to some extent this has been beneficial. I often try to get students who are good at learning vocabulary to share their methods with those who are less successful for example, or ask students who love grammar to share their understanding with others, becoming mini-mentors.
However, when Penny discussed the second principle, I had a bit of a paradigm shift. In fact, isn't the goal of the teacher to help every one get something out of the lesson. I love the idea of letting each student work as many questions as they want, or do the ones they are confident in (And I wonder if it might be worthwhile to say, "Do 3 questions you think you know well, and then try one you are less confident about," and get them to push themselves a bit). I think in my old mindset, I ran the risk of either neglecting the learning of the advanced students or forgetting that even though a student can be overall advanced, there are often gaps in their learning. And occasionally a lower-level student will be quite good at some fairly advanced skill or know a set of complicated vocabulary.
So rather than looking at students holistically as "advanced" or "lower level", it's nice to let them approach each lesson afresh and perhaps it will be one of the more advanced students that struggles to finish all the questions in Exercise C. Thinking off the cuff, that might mean that in some cases, a so-called lower level student would become the mentor, explaining their answers to that exercise. Which I imagine would be quite good for their confidence.
I am quite interested in this notion of using the same material for different levels. As a materials writer, it's one of the biggest challenges, writing for all classroom situations (because you can't), so I hope to learn more about differentiation with the same activity.
Thanks for this, Walton. An insightful and thoughtful contribution!
ReplyDeleteYes, a lot of these ideas are good for materials writers, not just for teachers. I'm quite surprised that materials writers don't make more use, for example, of the 'at least' idea in their instructions: Do at least ...., and if you have time then do ... - it's so simple and immediately makes the task available to a range of levels. Or making a more difficult exercise clearly 'Optional'. Or limiting a task by time rather than by quantity.
Walton, I agree with you and I was also struck by the second principle. I have immediately included the 'at least' and 'if you have time then do' instructions during my lessons today. I've just realized that although I've always imagined Ss needed to do as much as possible from an exercise, perhaps they just need to feel motivated and comfortable enough to keep trying their best each time. I have a particularly week student who might benefit so much from this tip. I am very grateful, Penny. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteOne criticism I've sometimes heard from teachers when suggesting this idea is that 'Oh, if I say that then they'll all do the minimum possible, and the more able students won't bother to do more...' - but in my experience this happens very rarely, if ever: normally, all the students pick up the challenge and try to do as many items as they can. Let me know what your experience is when you try it!
ReplyDeletePenny Ur Yes, Penny. I must admit that it also occurred to me that students would try to do as little as they could. However, as I was suggesting my student tried remembering 3 words she had learned during our session yesterday, she started trying to remember as much as possible! I think that might have happened because she felt energized by my positive comments as she remembered each word and the sense of achievement of completing the task, do you agree?
ReplyDeleteYes, totally. If students get the message that you expect them to do their best, and respond enthusiastically when they do, they will continue to go for it!
ReplyDeleteI can imagine my secondary colleagues having something to say about the “do as much as you can” method. How does summative assessment work here? The school tells them they need to give students 4 tests a semester and if there are varying and optional levels of completion during the lesson, can everybody succeed if they didn’t do it all? I much prefer formative assessment myself, but summative testing is still used and heavily relied up to determine success.
ReplyDeleteI’m just thinking back to all the times I’ve sat in lessons having not done all the exercises and have been made to feel bad about that by my teachers!
The answer to the point brought up in your first paragraph above is that all the ideas I've been suggesting apply to teaching, not to testing (summative assessment). They have totally different goals: the goal of teaching is to get students to learn; the goal of testing is to find out how much they've learnt. So they're totally different ball games. Strategies you'd use in teaching would not be appropriate for testing ... not only the ones I suggested like 'do as much as you can' but also many others, like teacher explanation or peer collaboration or ongoing error correction etc. etc. My course is about teaching, so I won't be dealing with summative assessment: maybe iTDi could do a course on this in the future.
ReplyDeletePenny Ur My current position means I don’t need to focus on testing either so I can concentrate on your valuable tips. Thanks a lot for your reply!
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ReplyDeletePenny Ur I think writers would love to include alternative direction lines, but it's hard to get the publishers to buy into it. I suppose they would say that teachers would need to be trained, but I think a comment in the Teacher's Book would suffice. I've actually been hearing a lot about ways to differentiate lately, and am percolating an idea for a proposal for a textbook for multi-level classes. But we'll see if any one is interested in publishing such a thing.
ReplyDeleteHannah McCulloch I think you'd have to design a test that aims at the middle of the road student. Depending on the testing, at some point you have to say that students who cannot do X task in Y time are not ready to graduate the course. I've done a lot of teaching university students so while in class, I can definitely give them leeway, eventually, they have to be able to write a good solid essay in a certain period of time. Hopefully, letting them work at their own pace focuses them on achievement and allows them to advance.
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