Rebecca Jones Embedding Information skills into the Year 9 PSHE/Citizenship curriculum at Malvern Girls' College: integrating learning styles with pupil research.

Rationale: We wanted to design a series of lessons that provided pupils with an opportunity to apply information literacy skills to a research task and deliver their findings to their peer group using a specific learning style.

The project aimed to: Enable pupils to practise and develop their Information Literacy skills. Enable pupils to learn about different Learning Styles. Cover a range of relevant topics from the Citizenship syllabus within a four week period. Encourage different ways of presenting information. Enable pupils to assess other groups presentations.

Method: We selected research topics from the Citizenship syllabus that were not currently covered within in PSHE. Additional topics from existing PSHE lessons then were chosen on the basis of their interest level for pupils. Each pair of pupils had 3 focus questions to research and present to the whole group. For pupils to use the CHAMPS learning styles software to find out about their allocated learning style. Each pair was set the task of creating a presentation using their learning style.

The Librarian gave a pre-project presentation to the year group and introduced the MGC Independent Learning Cycle. Independent Learning and Information Literacy

CHAMPS The software allows you to explore different learning styles and identify your own preferences.

CHAMPS Pupils were directed towards the Action section as it provides techniques that can be used when learning or presenting information.

Multiple Intelligences Physical Mathematical e.g. Musical

Year 9 lesson structure Lesson 1: Researching learning style Lesson 2: Researching topic Lesson 3: Preparation of presentations Lesson 4: Presentations in form rooms

Topics and Focus Questions Topics Censorship Domestic Violence The future of the countryside Health Teenage Pregnancy Money Gambling Drugs Animal Rights Questions 1.What does censorship mean? 2.Do you think that there should be any censorship laws? 3.Would you change the laws in any way? 1.Give some relevant facts about teenage pregnancy. 2.What are some of the problems facing teenage parents? 3.What do you think is the best way of lowering the teenage pregnancy rate?

Analysis: The quality of the presentations was good, although some of the learning styles were problematic. The project required pupils to use some higher order skills as they needed to understand the information they had found. Pupils seemed to enjoy the research topics and the questions provided focus for their research.

Some examples of the techniques that were used: Mathematical: Teenage Pregnancy Boy + Girl = Baby ! Musical: Gambling A rap about the problems of being addicted to gambling Interpersonal: Health Asking the class to work with their neighbour to answer some questions on the information. Intrapersonal: Domestic Violence Asking the audience to imagine how it must feel to experience domestic abuse.

Conclusions: Working within PSHE is a useful way of embedding skills for a whole year group. The project required pupils to complete all the stages of the Independent Learning cycle and really engage with the information. Introducing learning styles provided a fun element.

Future considerations: Introduce a reflective element in relation to the skills that have been used. Need to ensure that learning styles are highlighted in other areas of the curriculum. Consider the optimum timing of the sessions.