Leading view papers – Days 1 to 7

Deep learning and personalised learning at Tonbridge Grammar School

 

Deep learning and personalised learning

What do these phrases mean and where do they come from?

The phrase ‘deep learning’ first came into usage when, in the 1980s, Noel Entwistle published research that distinguished between deep learning and surface learning. It is now being used by David Hargreaves in his work with the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust on the ‘gateways’ for learning.

The basic differences are explained below.

Deep learning	Surface learning
To understand ideas for yourself	To cope with course requirements
Relating ideas to previous knowledge and experience	Studying without reflection on purpose or strategy
Looking for patterns and underlying principles	Treating the course as unrelated bits of knowledge
Checking evidence and relating it to conclusions	Memorising facts and procedures routinely
Examining logic and argument cautiously and critically	Finding difficulty in making sense of new ideas presented
Becoming actively interested in course content	Feeling undue pressure and worry about work

 

A deep learner is described as an articulate, autonomous but collaborative learner, with higher meta-cognitive control and the generic skills of learning, gained through engaging educational experiences with enriched opportunities and challenges, and supported by various people, materials and ICT.

Personalising learning is a phrase used by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), specifically in Christine Gilbert’s document 20/20 Vision for Ofsted. This means an approach to teaching and learning that is focused on:

‘Tailoring education to individual need, interest and aptitude so as to ensure that every pupil achieves and reaches the highest standards possible’.

So, differentiation then!  Both agendas focus on the acquisition of skills, as well as content. The 20/20 report recommends that schools focus their curriculum to re-emphasise:

• being able to communicate orally at a high level
• reliability, punctuality and perseverance
• knowing how to work with others in a team
• knowing how to evaluate information critically
• taking responsibility for, and being able to manage, one’s own learning
• developing the habits of effective learning
• knowing how to work independently without close supervision
• being confident and able to investigate problems and find solutions
• being resilient in the face of difficulties
• being creative, entrepreneurial, inventive and enterprising.

Changes to teaching methods

The report goes on to suggest the following changes:

• judicious use of whole-class teaching, as well as one-to-one, paired and group work
• using more open-ended tasks based on specific projects or areas of enquiry
• an explicit focus on higher order thinking skills and L2L (Learn 2 Learn)
• using group work, including academic peer mentoring, paired and cooperative learning.

Hargreaves identifies three key ‘gateways’ that support deep learning:

• assessment for learning
• student voice
• Learn2Learn.

The 20/20 vision document can be downloaded from:
www.teachernet.gov.uk/_doc/10783/6856_DfES_Teaching_and_Learning.pdf
www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/personalisedlearning

What have we done at Tonbridge Grammar School?

1. AfL (Assessment for Learning). Lots of INSET; rewritten department and school policies; display of work at different levels; comment-only marking; traffic-lighting; must/should/could; peer assessment; self-assessment; banks of exemplar work at different levels; students ideally knowing what level they are on and how to progress to the next level; targets and grades; and use of data.

For discussion

Does the ‘Ofsted’ focus that means each child must know their grade or level, and how to progress, work against the enquiry-based, experimental approach at the heart of deep learning? Does it veer towards a spoon-feeding approach?

2. Student voice. Student council; student focus groups; students trained to observe lessons; INSET; students on interview panels; students attending meetings; student questionnaires on whole-school issues.

For discussion

How do we support the students in knowing what is best for them without imposing what we want too heavily? What else can we devolve to them, and allow them to be involved, that would benefit the school as a community?

3. Learn2Learn. This means an explicit focus on ensuring students know how to learn and use information. Some schools have separate L2L lessons or an L2L programme; some have gone so far as to look at a competency curriculum that focuses on skills rather than content, and assesses skills.

What are we doing? Subject areas have identified, in an audit, which skills are important to them, and what they would like to see in year 7. This information will inform the planning and content of the enquiry weeks in next year’s year 7.

• Subjects deal with the skills they want to see in their own lessons, even if this overlaps with another area.
• There are odd days of curriculum suspension that focus on enterprise and teamwork/ health awareness/ PSHE (Personal, Social and Health Education).

For discussion

• Should we ensure more explicitly that our incoming students have the skills we expect from them?
• Should we use an assessment system/ descriptors in student planners to chart the progress of students towards achieving these skills
• Should we use EBL (Education Business Links) week or PSHE to focus on skills?
• How can we integrate ASDAN (Award Scheme Development and Accreditation Network) into this?
• How are we adapting our curriculum to facilitate deep learning?

From 2007, we are cutting key stage 3 down to two years, with SATs taken in May of year 8. This is to increase pace and challenge, and to get increasingly irrelevant or too easy exams out of the way. Maths and English have been piloting this.

There will be a minimum of three weeks of curriculum suspension for year 7, when enquiry-based learning will run:

• a project called ‘Me Myself I’, probably in the first week of the year
• a project on growth and health in the spring
• a project called carnival or world fair in the summer.

The students will work in teams on cross-curricular master classes. They will be assessed on the five skills of the RSA (Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts) competency curriculum. They will be taught by fewer teachers than normal, and work on some areas outside the normal curriculum, such as cookery and architecture.
From 2009, there will be a three-year key stage 4, based on the midyears International Baccalaureate (IB) model, where students will study a combination of GCSEs (General Certificate of Secondary Education), AS Levels and vocational courses, as well as internally accredited elective courses.
One afternoon a week, teachers will have a planning and meeting time, while students are offered ‘Triple X’ (Xplore, Xtend, Xpand) through clubs and activities, such as first aid, salsa, art history, film-making, and so on. These will be vertically grouped and offered on an opt-in, carousel basis, run by non-teaching staff. This will be part of the way we meet the extended schools agenda.

• We are introducing ASDAN, to certify and validate the students’ life skills and enrichment activities. This will be piloted in year 7 and 12 from 2007.
• We are already teaching IB in the sixth form as an alternative to A levels: it is felt to be a more intellectually rigorous course that suits all-rounders.
• We are extending the core offer to all sixth form students to create more parity between the two routes.
• We have rewritten schemes of work to prioritise investigative, enquiry-based tasks
• We are working in learning pairs, or small teams, to develop cross-curricular skills-based projects throughout the year groups.
• We have developed our enterprise agenda and teach PSHE through curriculum suspension days, often using outside providers such as Price Waterhouse or the Navy to deliver skills-based activities.
• We have carefully audited citizenship across the subjects and are making this a focus for departmental planning.
• We are encouraging students and departments to build enrichment work and competitions into their schemes of work and programmes of study.

iNet online conference discussion

The iNet online conference topic: ‘Experiences for the deep learner: School is boring and disengaging. How do we meet the challenge of inspiring learners?

The teaching and learning group at Tonbridge Grammar School discussed this topic on 1 February and made the following comments:

• The accountability produced by the league tables means that much exam teaching is highly focused on assessment objectives and revision techniques, not necessarily lending itself to the enquiry-based, investigative approach needed for deep learning.
• How can we reconcile the two? (At Tonbridge Grammar, there is great pressure to be at the top of the league tables and above other similar local schools.)
• Although most students achieve well in terms of results in written papers, they cannot al communicate effectively at a high level - the IB reveals these weaknesses more than A levels.
• Students need support to achieve well orally – they can be helped by using IB criteria for oral presentations, peer mentoring, watching others, and so on.
• Every student needs appropriate resources (such as textbooks) to be able to access content in order to move onto discussion and higher order thinking. If too much time is given to teacher explanation or presentation of basic information, less time is available for applying that information.
• Even a standard Ofsted practice like having to write lesson objectives on the board ties the content down and can work against freedom to explore. However, students can be involved in negotiating the learning aims
• Target setting at the end of each piece of work also lends itself to a narrow focus.

The things that can build engagement are:

• enthusiasm from the teacher for his/her subject and for the students
• planning time so that activities are kinaesthetic, visual and auditory – often kinaesthetic activities require complex preparation
• relationships - knowing students by name, not teaching too many, constant verbal feedback and praise
• giving a choice of ways to present the task, and giving information in different ways for ease of access
• constructivism – appropriate baseline assessment so that students start from an appropriate point and are not doing stuff they know already or have done elsewhere
• having appropriate technical help and resources
• starter activities to engage
• a stimulating, clean classroom environment
• students taking part of the lesson
• making sure that the task is appropriate to the audience
• having a variety of activities in every lesson, and especially, over a series of lessons
• each student feeling known and valued
• creativity and challenge being provided for all students all the time.
• student voice - students involved in planning and choosing lesson content and strategy, as well as task.

Five essential skills and personal qualities from the RSA competency curriculum

• active investigators
• creative contributors
• reflective learners
• confident collaborators
• practical self-managers

Active investigators:

• identify questions to answer and problems to resolve
• plan and carry out research
• analyse information and judge its relevance
• synthesise information, making decisions and forming their own view
• support their conclusions using reasoned arguments and evidence
• present and share information, effectively acknowledging sources.

Creative contributors:

• generate ideas, keeping options open
• ask questions to extend their thinking
• connect their own and others ideas and experiences in inventive ways
• challenge conventions and their own and others assumptions
• try out alternatives or new solutions and follow ideas through
• adapt their ideas as circumstances change.

Reflective learners:

• assess their skills and needs and recognise their achievements
• set clear objectives with success criteria for their development and work
• review progress against success criteria
• invite feedback and deal positively with praise and criticism
• evaluate learning and make changes to achieve success.

Confident collaborators:

• contribute openly, working with others to common objectives
• try out different roles within the group
• progress ideas, building on or challenging others’ contributions as appropriate
• take responsibility for their contribution to outcome
• provide constructive feedback and support to others
• manage conflict to achieve results.

Independent learners:

• realise their goals showing initiative, commitment and perseverance
• manage time and resources effectively
• prioritise actions, anticipating and overcoming difficulties
• deal with competing pressures, including personal and work-related demands
• respond positively to change by taking on new responsibilities and learning new skills
• show flexibility when priorities change.

*See the Tonbridge Grammar School website at: www.tgs.kent.sch.uk/

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Ms Lesley Tyler is an Advanced Skills Teacher at Tonbridge Grammar School, in Tonbridge, Kent, UK. The school’s Teaching and Learning Group also contributed to the paper.

 

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