Activating students as owners of their own learning

This is when a pupil uses coloured cards or something similar to demonstrate, at a glance, how they feel about a particular piece of work.

• if a pupil understands, does not understand or unsure of a task/piece of work they can use coloured cards/codes for teacher and each other to gauge/evaluate pupils’ understanding and plan next steps

• these codes can be used during Q & A sessions or group discussions nearing the end of a lesson/unit/project

• Pupils with a better understanding can explain to others who need help – giving opportunity to those who understand the experience to explain/ using appropriate language/terminology

This allows the teacher to see, at a glance, pupil understanding on a topic/ key concept taught. The pupil rates how well they understand the topic by rating themselves using their hand between 0 (a fist) to 5 where 5 fingers demonstrates they are fully confident in their learning and a fist (0) indicates they are not clear at all. This then allows the teacher to alter the lesson to address this need.

Students develop questions themselves, in pairs or as a group to deepen their own understanding of the topic being studied. This gives ownership to pupils;

• pupils write relevant questions linked/connected to subject/topic or using a marking scheme

• teacher can then use these questions as part of a test

• to be used nearing the end of lesson/unit/project

This is when students ‘traffic light’ a list of concepts in terms of whether they understand them well, need a little help or need a lot of help. Developing critical thinking – allowing you to see connections.

Students write a question that they need an answer to on a post it and place it in the ‘parking lot’ (a place to put the questions) e.g. a sheet of paper on the wall at the back of the class. This then allows the teacher or other students, not necessarily from that class to answer the questions.

At the end of a lesson students are each given out a post-it note. They are then asked to write down one thing from the lesson that they understood or ‘got’ and one thing they did not fully understand (need). The teacher will then collect these and use them to reflect upon and plan what learning needs to be undertaken next lesson.

When students are given a task or activity the teacher uses good examples of student work from another class or previous years, or teacher mock example to show pupils what their work should be like or include.

Students evaluate their own work against a marking scheme so they can reflect on what is expected of them. This could be used after an assessment in order for students to fully understand and appreciate what is required to gain good marks.

At the end of a lesson one student summarises what the whole class were learning during the lesson. The student should be selected at random either at the start or end of the lesson (for example name sticks, name cards or any other method appropriate).

When students are assigned homework a homework help board is set up, either in the classroom or on an internet forum such as Glow. Students are then provided the opportunity, before the homework deadline, to write up or post a problem they have with the homework. The other students then try to find a solution to this problem and solve the problem on the board for everyone to see the correct answer. It may be appropriate to see several ways to solve the problem.

Rather than giving children feedback about what they need to do to improve a piece of work, ask them to think about one small change that they could make in a piece of work to make it better. Do not require the child to make that change (unless the child wants to of course). It is the reflection, not the action that is important here.