Key Principles of Challenging the More Able: Session One: Key Principles of Challenging the More Able: Turning Theory into Classroom Practice 9:30 – 10:45

Area of Challenge

Effort is a Vector

Stretching and challenging the thinking of more-able learners is about helping them to target their efforts at the outer edge of their ZPD.

Bloom’s Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain

A Development of the Taxonomy of the Psychomotor Domain Invention? Naturalisation Articulation Precision Manipulation Imitation A Development of the Taxonomy of the Psychomotor Domain

Bloom’s Taxonomy - Synthesis and Evaluation Evaluate Appraise Argue Assess Critique Defend Evaluate Examine Grade Inspect Judge Justify Rank Rate Review Value Synthesise Combine Compose Construct Create Devise Design Formulate Hypothesise Integrate Merge Organise Plan Propose Synthesise Unite Sample Question: ‘Austria is a great place to live.’ How might you defend this? Sample Question: What might an alternative solution look like?

Bloom’s Taxonomy - Synthesis and Evaluation Evaluate Appraise Argue Assess Critique Defend Evaluate Examine Grade Inspect Judge Justify Rank Rate Review Value Synthesise Combine Compose Construct Create Devise Design Formulate Hypothesise Integrate Merge Organise Plan Propose Synthesise Unite Create questions in which one of the keywords is part of the question stem. Create questions based on evaluation or synthesis more broadly. Develop a set of stock questions you can return to again and again. Identify 2/3 keywords you prefer and focus on using these. Select keywords at random to create questions on the hoof.

3) Show me, Tell me, Convince me Using Structuring Tools to Ensure Questions are Sufficiently Challenging Structuring tools are ways of creating questions quickly and easily. They can be used across the curriculum and with different age groups. You can use them to ensure your questions are sufficiently challenging. Here are five examples 1) Bloom’s Taxonomy 2) Concrete to Abstract 3) Show me, Tell me, Convince me 4) Digging Deeper 5) General to specific

Questioning: Structuring Tools Think about some of the most-able students you teach. Identify a topic you have taught them recently. How could you use the structuring tools to: Plan a series of challenging questions for these students? Come up with challenging questions on the spur of the moment? Turn the tables and invite the students to develop challenging questions about the topic? 1) Bloom’s Taxonomy 2) Concrete to Abstract 3) Show me, Tell me, Convince me 4) Digging Deeper 5) General to specific

Decide who will play the role of Socrates first in your groups. Socratic Dialogue Gadfly - Asking lots of little questions to push thinking and avoid sloppiness Stingray - Big questions that pack a jolt Midwife - Helping to give birth to ideas Ignoramus - Playing dumb to encourage explanation Decide who will play the role of Socrates first in your groups.

Decide who will play the role of Socrates first in your groups. Socratic Dialogue Gadfly - Asking lots of little questions to push thinking and avoid sloppiness Stingray - Big questions that pack a jolt Midwife - Helping to give birth to ideas Ignoramus - Playing dumb to encourage explanation Decide who will play the role of Socrates first in your groups.

Topic One: Is it ever right to lie?

Topic Two: Do animals have minds?

Topic Three: Can you trust a memory?

Socratic Dialogue Gadfly - Asking lots of little questions to push thinking and avoid sloppiness Stingray - Big questions that pack a jolt Midwife - Helping to give birth to ideas Ignoramus - Playing dumb to encourage explanation In what ways could you adapt Socratic Dialogue – either in full or in part – to stretch and challenge the thinking of your most-able learners?

Stingray Questions Sting-ray questions are big questions that pack a jolt. Examples include: Imagine X was not the case. Then what? What if everything was turned on its head? You say that…But, what if Y happened? What then? Choose three topics you have taught recently or will soon be teaching. For each one, try to develop a sting-ray question which really challenges your most able students to think more deeply about the topic. Be ready to share your questions!

Challenge and Metacognition

Challenge and Metacognition Metacognition means higher order thinking involving active control over cognitive processes connected to learning. Planning how to approach a task, monitoring the extent of one’s own understanding, and evaluating progress during the course of a task are all examples of metacognition.

Challenge and Metacognition To what extent could you adapt this approach to stretch and challenge the thinking of your most-able students? How could you challenge students to think more critically about their own thinking in your subject?

Challenge and Skills Skills Content One way to conceive of learning is that it constitutes three things: content, concepts and skills. While these overlap, it can be helpful to think about them separately. Here we can do that by examining some skill-focussed exemplars of how to stretch and challenge the most able. Content Concepts Skills

Skills: Match-Group-Rank Foot Leg Goal Window Radiator Shorts Bowl Satsuma Tea Oven Shelf Coal Match the items into 2’s or 3’s. Group the items according to some sort of classification system (you may include items in more than one group). Choose a set of criteria and then rank the items in relation to this set of criteria. Create a second set of criteria and re-rank the items. Compare the two lists. What does this reveal about the nature of the items?

Skills: Defend Your Position Essex is the best place in the world to live because… Of the public transport Of the weather I live here Of the range of food available It has so many things to do Of its history You will have three minutes to come up with a speech defending your position and criticising other people’s positions.

Skills: Distancing 1) Is democracy the best of all governments? What might a disenchanted voter say about this? How might they convey their ideas? What might cause them to think differently from you? 2) How might football tactics change in the next ten years? What might an academy coach say about this? What about an academy coach with a vested interest in developing players of a certain type? What about an athletics coach?

Skills and The Language of Challenge Why do you think that? Where’s your evidence? How does this fit with what we were saying earlier? How would you try to discover if that is true or not? What might be the consequences of this? What do you predict will happen, based on what you know? You can help your most able students to consistently develop their skills of justification, reasoning and explanation by having a set of questions ready which you use to challenge any answer they provide. What are the most challenging questions in your repertoire at present? How often do you use these? How focussed are these questions on the development of specific skills – such as justification, reasoning and explanation?