Collaborative Learning Scaffolding Talk across the Curriculum Oracy in Context stuart.scott@collaborativelearning.org www.collaborativelearning.org/nate17.html

Collaborative Learning is a teacher network which develops and disseminates curriculum based ‘talk for learning’ teaching activities at all ages and in every subject. It was funded by the Inner London Education Authority from 1983 – 1989 and is now spread worldwide.

Collaborative Learning evolved in multilingual mainstream classrooms Collaborative Learning evolved in multilingual mainstream classrooms. Through developing oracy in context, it helps to produce a language friendly classroom. It helps to make teachers language conscious because they listen more to their children and respond more appropriately.

Brain research Up to age of 11 brain is 150% more active in acquiring language. The act of talking while thinking increases the number of connections and cells that build the brain. Talk fuels brain development. Research summed up in Robin Alexander’s “Towards Dialogic Teaching; Rethinking Classroom Talk”

In the last ten years progress in neuroscience has confirmed our earlier guesses that exploratory talk creates synapses and fuels brain development which of course makes you more intelligent …

Linking research and practice Have you looked at the Education Endowment Foundation? Currently a growth of mainly university based study centres e.g. Learning without Limits, Oracy at Cambridge. Does your school have a framework which supports evidence based practice and/or ways in which new strategies for improving progress are observed and tested? Would your school be interested in using “lesson study” or “collaborative enquiry” to achieve this?

When children learn to tell stories they begin to ‘own’ bits of language and culture Stories offer unique opportunities to extend range of vocabulary and phrasing There is a transformational space when learners learn together out loud.

The transformations that take place somewhere between pupils talking through ideas together and then presenting them to others are brain empowering, but need to be scaffolded.. Scaffolding is good for all pupils, but vital for pupils learning a new language while they are learning.

Borrowed Metaphors: Glass Ceiling Barium Meal

Writing will not progress unless talk has raised the glass ceiling Writing will not progress unless talk has raised the glass ceiling. “learning floats on a sea of talk”

If you get it right for EAL pupils you have got it right for everybody else.

Across the Mode Continuum! Exploring ways of introducing all curriculum content in a variety of modes from informal spoken to formal written.

EAL Friendly? Basic Principles for collaborative planning. Build on prior knowledge Move from concrete to abstract Ensure everyone works with everyone else Extend social language into curriculum language Provide motivating ways to go over the same thing more than once

Reading: some general strategies Provide opportunities for pupils to: Read texts more than once Hear texts read more than once Act immediately on what they have read Read short texts with academic content Read with others Move across the mode continuum

Writing: some general strategies Provide opportunities for pupils to: Hear and see writing modelled Write accurately but independently using scaffolding such as substitution tables Avoid copying Write collaboratively Have an audience for their writing Move from talk to writing

Some examples of collaborative learning strategies.

Let Me Introduce How does it work? Pupils find one person with the same colour card Each one reads out their card which begins “I am..” The pair finds another pair – now they introduce their partner so it is no longer “I am” and has become “This is …… they….” in students own words.

Let Me Introduce Why does it work? Opportunities to deliver curriculum content Practice in reading > reading aloud. Process of listen>understand/think> construct speech in own words. Communication and interaction is integral. Students work with many others. Possible application across many topics/subjects.

Sorting cards onto a visual organiser. Why it works Opportunities to explore vocabulary Practice in explaining concepts Opportunities to expand mental models Visual organisers structure thinking You can reinforce the organisers with games.

Barrier games Barrier games are games where one person (or pair) has half the information and the other person (or pair) has the other half. Complete information sets can be obtained by asking questions or by passing on information. Familiar informal examples would be battleships. The deduction game “20 questions” is also related.

Barrier Games Why do they work? Opportunities to deliver curriculum content Practice in reading or interpreting data. Practice in questioning Communication and interaction is integral. All students must participate Possible application across many topics/subjects.

Clue cards to make experts In this variation pupils work as a group. Each person has some information which is essential. The group then work together to complete a joint task. Examples “Indus Valley“ ”The Wilsons” “What Can You Grow?”

Information gaps / Expert groups Pupils work in a group to understand some information. They are then regrouped to work with pupils who have learnt something else. Each new group should have a complete set of information by the end. Jigsawing a term used to describe the grouping and regrouping.

Information gaps / Expert groups /Jigsawing Why do they work? Opportunities to read/ listen/ talk All pupils must participate Learning is carried and recalled to support embedding Opportunities to differentiate Easy to organise All pupils have their own set of complete information to support subject knowledge tasks.

How are activities planned? What do we want the children to know? What kinds of thinking do we hope they will practice? What kinds of language do they need? Necessary language and potential language? What key visuals best produce the thinking and the language? Can we make our activity sociable?

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