“The teacher’s job is not to transmit knowledge, nor to facilitate learning. It is to engineer effective learning environments for the students. The key features of effective learning environments are that they create student engagement and allow teachers, learners, and their peers to ensure that the learning is proceeding in the intended direction. The only way we can do this is through assessment. That is why assessment is, indeed, the bridge between teaching and learning.”
― Dylan Wiliam, Embedded Formative Assessment
The term plenary has crossed my path this week. It’s an interesting word, which seemed to derive from the three-part lesson that was seen as good practice when the National Strategies came about. It was the final part, the drawing together of what had occurred during the lesson and deriving significant learning points to take forward into subsequent lessons.
Or that was the supposed intention.
For some, the plenary became a last activity to fill the final five minutes of a lesson, which may or may not, have a bearing on any learning during the lesson. It stood as a finale, in the same way as “starter” activities could also be separate activities, argued as a means to get children thinking in a particular subject at the transitional stage of a lesson.
This week, plenaries have been discussed as in-lesson interactions, where teachers spot a need and engage with a proportion of, or the whole class, to address a misconception. The problem with in-lesson “plenaries”, in the hands of an inexperienced practitioner, is that they can be done for the sake of being seen to be done.
Interventions, of any description, need to have a rational purpose.
“I’m stopping this child, group, class lesson, because I need to check x, in order to reassess, or reset where the learning is going.” It can even be articulated in that way to the children. It might be an occasion to use different resources or models, scaffolding ideas to ensure some additional information is embedded, to be incorporated into a task, allowing a greater degree of success in the outcome. It is the point where the teacher assumes the role of coach or mentor, unpicking the fine details of, sometimes individual need, fine tuning teaching and learning demands appropriately.
It is, to all intents and purposes, the point where teacher standards 6&5 impact on standard 2; spotting a need, addressing it and ensuring some positive achievements. In Dylan Wiliam’s terms, it is the point where the reflective teacher becomes reactive, based on the evidence of the child, group or class needs.
In other words, just good teaching.
“feedback should cause thinking. It should be focused; it should relate to the learning goals that have been shared with the students; and it should be more work for the recipient than the donor. Indeed, the whole purpose of feedback should be to increase the extent to which students are owners of their own learning,”
― Dylan Wiliam, Embedded Formative Assessment
― Dylan Wiliam, Embedded Formative Assessment
The term plenary has crossed my path this week. It’s an interesting word, which seemed to derive from the three-part lesson that was seen as good practice when the National Strategies came about. It was the final part, the drawing together of what had occurred during the lesson and deriving significant learning points to take forward into subsequent lessons.
Or that was the supposed intention.
For some, the plenary became a last activity to fill the final five minutes of a lesson, which may or may not, have a bearing on any learning during the lesson. It stood as a finale, in the same way as “starter” activities could also be separate activities, argued as a means to get children thinking in a particular subject at the transitional stage of a lesson.
This week, plenaries have been discussed as in-lesson interactions, where teachers spot a need and engage with a proportion of, or the whole class, to address a misconception. The problem with in-lesson “plenaries”, in the hands of an inexperienced practitioner, is that they can be done for the sake of being seen to be done.
Interventions, of any description, need to have a rational purpose.
“I’m stopping this child, group, class lesson, because I need to check x, in order to reassess, or reset where the learning is going.” It can even be articulated in that way to the children. It might be an occasion to use different resources or models, scaffolding ideas to ensure some additional information is embedded, to be incorporated into a task, allowing a greater degree of success in the outcome. It is the point where the teacher assumes the role of coach or mentor, unpicking the fine details of, sometimes individual need, fine tuning teaching and learning demands appropriately.
It is, to all intents and purposes, the point where teacher standards 6&5 impact on standard 2; spotting a need, addressing it and ensuring some positive achievements. In Dylan Wiliam’s terms, it is the point where the reflective teacher becomes reactive, based on the evidence of the child, group or class needs.
In other words, just good teaching.
“feedback should cause thinking. It should be focused; it should relate to the learning goals that have been shared with the students; and it should be more work for the recipient than the donor. Indeed, the whole purpose of feedback should be to increase the extent to which students are owners of their own learning,”
― Dylan Wiliam, Embedded Formative Assessment
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