TeachMeet Ox-fail 2013 - the review...
I loved this TeachMeet. Like a funny and inspiring version of Ronnie Corbett, it was short, funny and inspiring; the emphasis on failure-first was refreshing, lending a sense of honesty and openness to proceedings as we happily nodded along in recognition of the mistakes and disasters that were explored.
We kicked off with a quote from the standard bearer of failure leading to success, Andy Murray, who spoke in his post-Wimbledon press conference of how his coach Ivan Lendl had made such a difference. Murray expressed the view that 'He's made me learn more from my losses than maybe I did in the past'. This set the theme for the event - learning from our losses, squeezing all the value and learning we can from dwelling on what goes wrong in our classrooms, even though that can be hard to do. Then, after a quick plug for Tim Harford's highly-recommended Adapt: why Success always starts with Failure, the book which inspired the event, we let the failing commence.
Wilson Chong - Taking Students through exam papers
Things got off to a flying start with a couple of minutes from Wilson Chong which reflected on the difficulties of trying to give students effective feedback on exam papers for GCSE Maths. Heads were nodding as he described the familiar scenario of failing to drag students through dull, difficult to differentiate 'exam review' lessons, probably in the afternoon, probably on a hot day after they've just had PE... we've all been there. He then showed his website and his solution. Rather than trying to give individualised feedback to groups of students at the same time, talk through each answer and store the result on YouTube, then get students to work independently to target the questions that they actually need. This is powerful stuff - we know that feedback is important; we know that clear direct instruction and explanation is important - here's an approach which combines the two and can revolutionise our ability to get students thinking deeply about and taking action on their weaker areas. More on this sort of approach here if you are interested; you should be, because it works.
Robin Marsden @robinjmarsden - Techno-fails
Sticking with the an IT theme, Robin Marsden provided an entertaining overview of the problems we face when trying to get students to work collaboratively on websites, in this case www.linoit.com. At first glance, this looks like an engaging, intuitive way to get students collaborating and sharing ideas online. He then talked about the difficulties that come with trying new shiny-looking approaches like this, notably that of moderating the quality and appropriacy of the contributions that students make. This is particularly true whilst they are still at the stage of enjoying the novelty of it all - we want them to make sophisticated contributions to debates about Hamlet's relationship with his mother for example; they might be more interested in making somewhat unsophisticated comments about the presentation of each other's mothers. Robin recommended sticking with it, recognising that trying to introduce new ways of working through IT is fraught with problems that are difficult to predict, and that a lot of 'embarrassing and total techno-failure' needs to be overcome before we start to get the benefits.
It strikes me that this poses us a key question we need to ask before bringing new elements of IT use into our classrooms: what's the likelihood of this making a substantial difference, and how does this compare to the time and effort the class and teacher are likely to expend in getting to a stage where real learning can take place? In short - is it worth it?
Rob Bown - Teaching Growth Mindset
Rob made an important contribution and asked an important question about trying to build Growth Mindsets in schools. Using Matthew Syed's Bounce, he talked us through the key points of GM, using lots of examples to provide compelling evidence that we should take this stuff seriously. He went on though to reflect on the extent to which it's worth us explicitly teaching growth mindset thinking to students, and the difficulties he's faced in trying to convince them - particularly those lower-attaining, low confidence students for whom it might have most benefit. Should we be directly teaching them about Growth Mindset thinking at all? How bothered should we be about students understanding and believing in it? My own view is that it's more important for teachers to be trained in the detail of GM than students; it really can inspire teachers by providing an evidence-base to support having high expectations for all students. Get the teachers inspired, and the kids will follow.
Tom Boulter - Too Much Information
My go was pretty straightforward - too often, I put one too many activities into my lessons. I gave as a case study an utterly typical, period-3-on-a-Friday English lesson, where I was trying to teach students to develop their explanations of spoken language use into more depth. The way I'd usually do this is by showing lots of worked examples of explanations, showing students firstly how to do it, and then ways that they might explore excellence; I'd then aim to clarify the criteria for what we were after, give them a few connectives to help free up their working memory a bit, then let them have a go on their own. Finally, I'd maybe photograph a couple of more interesting examples, get them on the board and then do a bit of self/peer assessment to see how they can improve.
In the lesson in question, that's exactly what I did have planned, but it was messed up by my bright idea to try to 'get them engaged in the topic' at the beginning with a starter on a related but not directly helpful topic (intonation). This involved a bit of drama, a couple of kids up at the front, and an unforeseen 20 minute faff around to try to get them to understand a concept which was much harder than I'd thought. As a result, I had to start the 'proper' bit of the lesson about 20 mins in, which involved more droning on from me, and I ran out of time to do the good stuff which I had prepared. So why did I do it? Especially as it's not the first time? Not sure really - I was being observed via video camera, which possibly made me feel I had to make it more entertaining, but I think the fact is that I've been programmed at some point into feeling that it's a good idea to do a quick something or other to 'get them interested' at the start, when in actual fact it is more often a good idea to get on with whatever the single important learning intention is, thereby ensuring that I leave enough time for substantial student work and a decent stab at feedback. It's a matter of being ultra-wary of the 'just a quick' activities - just a quick starter, a quick drama thing, a quick video clip... if by 'just a quick' we actually mean a low-value, fundamentally not very useful activity, the sensible course of action is pretty clear: just don't do it.
Matt Gray - Blog Fails - 'blogging a dead horse...'
Another cracking two minute presentation which will resonate with many people reading this came from Head of English Matt Gray, reflecting on his use of a his really impressive looking blog: to support his students. He focused on the danger of hubris in leading this sort of work, making the point that whilst it's currently fashionable to make materials available online, the danger is that impact on students can be limited. Matt's point was basically that just because something looks good, it doesn't mean that it is good; creating a beautiful looking online resource for students is a waste of time if the end result in learning is that the teacher refines their skills in html or using photoshop to make logos, whilst the students you really want to reach carry on as normal, either ignoring the resource or accessing it to a very superficial extent. He then talked about ways he's adapted his practice - e.g. by insisting that students use the blog to post comments as homeworks - to ensure higher levels of participation.
I'm reminded of a section in Tim Harford's book where he writes about the introduction of 'play pumps' in South Africa, an innovation where roundabouts for children were linked to nearby wells, with the idea that as children played on them, water would be drawn up up and stored. This idea generated a lot of excitement as a way to improve living conditions, and many glossy, optimistic marketing photos were generated by the very well-intentioned organisations involved. In reality the results were often much less positive. The pumps were not consistently used, meaning that women were often placed in the demeaning position of having to push the roundabouts by hand in order to get the water they needed. Aside from the indignity, it was also much less efficient than using basic hand pumps which make for less 'wow' but more water (more details here if you are interested). Similar to Matt's point, the failure here comes through being drawn too readily to surface-attractions, and being insufficiently focused on impact and outcomes. Education has plenty of play pump equivalents - hello brain-gym, learning styles, interactive whiteboards etc - and Matt's presentation was a timely reminder of the need to look beyond the surface, and to seek evidence that what we are doing actually makes a difference.
Britt Strickland - 'Disaster Behaviour Management - teacher/student power struggles as spectator sport'
Britt Strickland was next up, with a compelling overview of his early experiences of teaching in the Bronx. Britt covered a lot of ground, talking about how as a passionate English teacher he struggled with being too emotionally-involved with the material he was delivering. In one anecdote, he described trying to remain calm and positive when hearing 'All Quiet on the Western Front' dismissed as being simply 'boring', concluding that it's important that we don't see our favourite topics or texts as sacred cows. By seeing things too much from our own perspective, we risk showing a lack of respect for student views and opinions, no matter how much we may disagree with them. Britt went on to describe a series of encounters with a student whose aspiration was to 'become a cage-fighter', and the mistakes that he'd made in engaging in verbal skirmishes with the child and trying to 'win' the interactions. He finished up with some guidance gleaned from his experiences: to talk to students openly, to care about explaining why things are being learnt, and, if a child is behaving badly, having a sincerely-posed 'what's the matter / are you OK?' as our first line of enquiry, rather than leaping straight to confrontation and condemnation. And even though the difference in context between North Oxford and the Bronx may be stark (in fairness, there was some graffiti once on the fence behind the bowls club), all present recognised the wisdom in the advice given here.
Judy Gleen - 'A Little Less Conversation...'
The final presentation was from local Head of Geography Judy Gleen, who delivered an enlightening presentation about the challenges of promoting effective student talk. Judy shared some research she'd done on the way that unstructured student group / pair work tended to lead to much low-value discussion - interestingly, not necessarily 'what are you doing at the weekend'-style off-task chatter, but lots of focus on the logistics of the task in hand: 'where shall I put the title / has anyone seen the glue'-sort of thing. In any case, Judy showed that unstructured tasks were unlikely to lead to rich discussions about the actual learning in hand. She then went on to suggest some solutions, focused on the explicit, criteria-led teaching, modelling and structuring of group activities and discussions in order to give a greater chance of success.
Moving on, Judy presented an issue which again had many of us wincing in recognition; she recounted setting up a 'mystery lesson', in which students were to work in groups to conduct a geographical enquiry. It ended up being, in her words, 'rubbish', because the task didn't precisely fit the criteria - they did a card sort that actually didn't require much enquiry, and therefore the task was doomed to failure. This reminded me of some work we've done at my school recently, focusing on the importance of coherent lesson-design, ensuring that the learning intention, criteria, modelling, task and feedback all align and stay focused on the precise content that needs to be delivering. It's not easy to get right and requires very clear thinking through - as Judy stated, so much of teaching is down to successful, precise design of the tasks that students actually complete.
Failing to provide a decent ending
So, as I'd got into the spirit of the event by failing to put any thought into how to wrap things up neatly, we stopped, finished our chats and went home. The best comment from a colleague came as we left the building: 'it's just so good to know that it's OK to fail...'; to which I'd only add that it's also fantastic to see colleagues reflecting on and learning from failure with such enthusiasm and good humour. As I said, I loved this TeachMeet - many thanks to all who took part - I'm looking forward to experiencing some good failures to present at TMOxfail 2014.
We kicked off with a quote from the standard bearer of failure leading to success, Andy Murray, who spoke in his post-Wimbledon press conference of how his coach Ivan Lendl had made such a difference. Murray expressed the view that 'He's made me learn more from my losses than maybe I did in the past'. This set the theme for the event - learning from our losses, squeezing all the value and learning we can from dwelling on what goes wrong in our classrooms, even though that can be hard to do. Then, after a quick plug for Tim Harford's highly-recommended Adapt: why Success always starts with Failure, the book which inspired the event, we let the failing commence.
Wilson Chong - Taking Students through exam papers
Things got off to a flying start with a couple of minutes from Wilson Chong which reflected on the difficulties of trying to give students effective feedback on exam papers for GCSE Maths. Heads were nodding as he described the familiar scenario of failing to drag students through dull, difficult to differentiate 'exam review' lessons, probably in the afternoon, probably on a hot day after they've just had PE... we've all been there. He then showed his website and his solution. Rather than trying to give individualised feedback to groups of students at the same time, talk through each answer and store the result on YouTube, then get students to work independently to target the questions that they actually need. This is powerful stuff - we know that feedback is important; we know that clear direct instruction and explanation is important - here's an approach which combines the two and can revolutionise our ability to get students thinking deeply about and taking action on their weaker areas. More on this sort of approach here if you are interested; you should be, because it works.
Robin Marsden @robinjmarsden - Techno-fails
Sticking with the an IT theme, Robin Marsden provided an entertaining overview of the problems we face when trying to get students to work collaboratively on websites, in this case www.linoit.com. At first glance, this looks like an engaging, intuitive way to get students collaborating and sharing ideas online. He then talked about the difficulties that come with trying new shiny-looking approaches like this, notably that of moderating the quality and appropriacy of the contributions that students make. This is particularly true whilst they are still at the stage of enjoying the novelty of it all - we want them to make sophisticated contributions to debates about Hamlet's relationship with his mother for example; they might be more interested in making somewhat unsophisticated comments about the presentation of each other's mothers. Robin recommended sticking with it, recognising that trying to introduce new ways of working through IT is fraught with problems that are difficult to predict, and that a lot of 'embarrassing and total techno-failure' needs to be overcome before we start to get the benefits.
It strikes me that this poses us a key question we need to ask before bringing new elements of IT use into our classrooms: what's the likelihood of this making a substantial difference, and how does this compare to the time and effort the class and teacher are likely to expend in getting to a stage where real learning can take place? In short - is it worth it?
Rob Bown - Teaching Growth Mindset
Rob made an important contribution and asked an important question about trying to build Growth Mindsets in schools. Using Matthew Syed's Bounce, he talked us through the key points of GM, using lots of examples to provide compelling evidence that we should take this stuff seriously. He went on though to reflect on the extent to which it's worth us explicitly teaching growth mindset thinking to students, and the difficulties he's faced in trying to convince them - particularly those lower-attaining, low confidence students for whom it might have most benefit. Should we be directly teaching them about Growth Mindset thinking at all? How bothered should we be about students understanding and believing in it? My own view is that it's more important for teachers to be trained in the detail of GM than students; it really can inspire teachers by providing an evidence-base to support having high expectations for all students. Get the teachers inspired, and the kids will follow.
Tom Boulter - Too Much Information
My go was pretty straightforward - too often, I put one too many activities into my lessons. I gave as a case study an utterly typical, period-3-on-a-Friday English lesson, where I was trying to teach students to develop their explanations of spoken language use into more depth. The way I'd usually do this is by showing lots of worked examples of explanations, showing students firstly how to do it, and then ways that they might explore excellence; I'd then aim to clarify the criteria for what we were after, give them a few connectives to help free up their working memory a bit, then let them have a go on their own. Finally, I'd maybe photograph a couple of more interesting examples, get them on the board and then do a bit of self/peer assessment to see how they can improve.
In the lesson in question, that's exactly what I did have planned, but it was messed up by my bright idea to try to 'get them engaged in the topic' at the beginning with a starter on a related but not directly helpful topic (intonation). This involved a bit of drama, a couple of kids up at the front, and an unforeseen 20 minute faff around to try to get them to understand a concept which was much harder than I'd thought. As a result, I had to start the 'proper' bit of the lesson about 20 mins in, which involved more droning on from me, and I ran out of time to do the good stuff which I had prepared. So why did I do it? Especially as it's not the first time? Not sure really - I was being observed via video camera, which possibly made me feel I had to make it more entertaining, but I think the fact is that I've been programmed at some point into feeling that it's a good idea to do a quick something or other to 'get them interested' at the start, when in actual fact it is more often a good idea to get on with whatever the single important learning intention is, thereby ensuring that I leave enough time for substantial student work and a decent stab at feedback. It's a matter of being ultra-wary of the 'just a quick' activities - just a quick starter, a quick drama thing, a quick video clip... if by 'just a quick' we actually mean a low-value, fundamentally not very useful activity, the sensible course of action is pretty clear: just don't do it.
Matt Gray - Blog Fails - 'blogging a dead horse...'
Another cracking two minute presentation which will resonate with many people reading this came from Head of English Matt Gray, reflecting on his use of a his really impressive looking blog: to support his students. He focused on the danger of hubris in leading this sort of work, making the point that whilst it's currently fashionable to make materials available online, the danger is that impact on students can be limited. Matt's point was basically that just because something looks good, it doesn't mean that it is good; creating a beautiful looking online resource for students is a waste of time if the end result in learning is that the teacher refines their skills in html or using photoshop to make logos, whilst the students you really want to reach carry on as normal, either ignoring the resource or accessing it to a very superficial extent. He then talked about ways he's adapted his practice - e.g. by insisting that students use the blog to post comments as homeworks - to ensure higher levels of participation.
I'm reminded of a section in Tim Harford's book where he writes about the introduction of 'play pumps' in South Africa, an innovation where roundabouts for children were linked to nearby wells, with the idea that as children played on them, water would be drawn up up and stored. This idea generated a lot of excitement as a way to improve living conditions, and many glossy, optimistic marketing photos were generated by the very well-intentioned organisations involved. In reality the results were often much less positive. The pumps were not consistently used, meaning that women were often placed in the demeaning position of having to push the roundabouts by hand in order to get the water they needed. Aside from the indignity, it was also much less efficient than using basic hand pumps which make for less 'wow' but more water (more details here if you are interested). Similar to Matt's point, the failure here comes through being drawn too readily to surface-attractions, and being insufficiently focused on impact and outcomes. Education has plenty of play pump equivalents - hello brain-gym, learning styles, interactive whiteboards etc - and Matt's presentation was a timely reminder of the need to look beyond the surface, and to seek evidence that what we are doing actually makes a difference.
Britt Strickland - 'Disaster Behaviour Management - teacher/student power struggles as spectator sport'
Britt Strickland was next up, with a compelling overview of his early experiences of teaching in the Bronx. Britt covered a lot of ground, talking about how as a passionate English teacher he struggled with being too emotionally-involved with the material he was delivering. In one anecdote, he described trying to remain calm and positive when hearing 'All Quiet on the Western Front' dismissed as being simply 'boring', concluding that it's important that we don't see our favourite topics or texts as sacred cows. By seeing things too much from our own perspective, we risk showing a lack of respect for student views and opinions, no matter how much we may disagree with them. Britt went on to describe a series of encounters with a student whose aspiration was to 'become a cage-fighter', and the mistakes that he'd made in engaging in verbal skirmishes with the child and trying to 'win' the interactions. He finished up with some guidance gleaned from his experiences: to talk to students openly, to care about explaining why things are being learnt, and, if a child is behaving badly, having a sincerely-posed 'what's the matter / are you OK?' as our first line of enquiry, rather than leaping straight to confrontation and condemnation. And even though the difference in context between North Oxford and the Bronx may be stark (in fairness, there was some graffiti once on the fence behind the bowls club), all present recognised the wisdom in the advice given here.
Judy Gleen - 'A Little Less Conversation...'
The final presentation was from local Head of Geography Judy Gleen, who delivered an enlightening presentation about the challenges of promoting effective student talk. Judy shared some research she'd done on the way that unstructured student group / pair work tended to lead to much low-value discussion - interestingly, not necessarily 'what are you doing at the weekend'-style off-task chatter, but lots of focus on the logistics of the task in hand: 'where shall I put the title / has anyone seen the glue'-sort of thing. In any case, Judy showed that unstructured tasks were unlikely to lead to rich discussions about the actual learning in hand. She then went on to suggest some solutions, focused on the explicit, criteria-led teaching, modelling and structuring of group activities and discussions in order to give a greater chance of success.
Moving on, Judy presented an issue which again had many of us wincing in recognition; she recounted setting up a 'mystery lesson', in which students were to work in groups to conduct a geographical enquiry. It ended up being, in her words, 'rubbish', because the task didn't precisely fit the criteria - they did a card sort that actually didn't require much enquiry, and therefore the task was doomed to failure. This reminded me of some work we've done at my school recently, focusing on the importance of coherent lesson-design, ensuring that the learning intention, criteria, modelling, task and feedback all align and stay focused on the precise content that needs to be delivering. It's not easy to get right and requires very clear thinking through - as Judy stated, so much of teaching is down to successful, precise design of the tasks that students actually complete.
Failing to provide a decent ending
So, as I'd got into the spirit of the event by failing to put any thought into how to wrap things up neatly, we stopped, finished our chats and went home. The best comment from a colleague came as we left the building: 'it's just so good to know that it's OK to fail...'; to which I'd only add that it's also fantastic to see colleagues reflecting on and learning from failure with such enthusiasm and good humour. As I said, I loved this TeachMeet - many thanks to all who took part - I'm looking forward to experiencing some good failures to present at TMOxfail 2014.
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