1. Developing Response-Ability
On Noticing
Angi Malderez

2. Our responsibility as Teachers is our Response Ability

3. Defining terms… /sharing meanings
What’s the difference?
Observing
Noticing

4. Noticing - what ‘strikes us’
- what we pay attention to
Observation - when we intend to notice,
- when we set out to try to notice.
Both include ‘see-noticing’ and ‘hear-noticing’

5. How does noticing support teaching?
(Teaching = supporting learning)
What learners do, say, & produce,
+ visible clues about their feelings and learning,
helps teachers know what to do next,
But only if they notice it …..

7. “OK, I have eyes
... and ears …”
“yes, but ….”

8. 3 Scenarios ‘It’ doesn’t register at all
‘It’ registers but we don’t give it any (conscious) attention
‘It’ registers and we ‘mark’ it, and can / do ‘re-mark’ on it.

9. On why we might not mark-notice
Blinker 1: (ice-skater/coherence)
Blinker 2:(‘getting up this morning’/ pink elephants)
Blinker 3: (words in triangle)
Blinker 4: (busy picture (i))
Blinker 5: (busy picture (ii))
Blinker 6: (picture (iii))

10. How can we become better noticers?
Consider the nature of the barriers we have identified.
What could you do to become a better noticer?

11. Becoming better noticers
Communicate (S/R) with others about what you have noticed to:
see the kinds of things you ‘mark’ (scenario 3)
enable you to recall things you registered but didn’t ‘mark’ (scenario 2)
And:
‘Feed the mind behind the eyes/ears’ (scenario 1)

12. Practise – it’s a skill -
and e.g. ask yourself whether, over time:
For your teaching
you are noticing a greater range of things
For your learning/researching
what you notice gives you the information you need / suits your purposes better

13. How does noticing support teacher ‘learnacy’?
Teacher Learning = On-going learning from our own and others’ experiences.
It starts by:
Re-viewing (seeing again)
But we need to have seen/ noticed the first time!

14. Finally
The desert travellers and the pebbles

23. Contact and references
Malderez A. & M. Wedell 2007 Teaching Teachers: Processes and Practices London/NY:Continuum
Mason, J Researching your own Practice: On the Discipline of Noticing. Routledge